


flower

by kyoonglights



Series: 사월, 그리고 꽃 (april, and a flower) [1]
Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, and even teenier tinier baekyeon, teeny tiny wenyeol on the side
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 07:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20336707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoonglights/pseuds/kyoonglights
Summary: track 01. flower (꽃)just like the cold and frozen season suddenly melts, maybe that’s how spring comes to me.(in which fate and coincidence conspire to make two jaded, searching souls meet.)





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> a series of surene fics inspired by kim jongdae's masterpiece: april, and a flower.
> 
> (this is going to be the only one multi-chaptered.)

_my heart is filled with only silence_

_it’s completely empty; even the warmth scatters_

_like a single stem of flower that’s been enduring alone_

**(hongdae, junmyeon)**

“Do I need to get my ironing board out?”

Junmyeon looks up to the source of the voice—and finds himself greeted with a familiar, easygoing smile and crinkling eyes. Even in the dark of the bar, Baekhyun has always been bright—Junmyeon’s eyes shoot up to the top of his head; it’s almost impossible for Baekhyun to be even _brighter_, with the brand new orange hair.

The younger man slides up to the barstool next to him, still grinning as he ruffles his own hair. “Like the hair?” He asks, only stopping after it’s properly mussed and messy.

“What’s the ironing board for?” Junmyeon asks instead, ignoring his question, but he smiles. Baekhyun looks good with any hair anyways, and he knows it. Junmyeon doesn’t want to feed too much into his ego.

Baekhyun pouts, but quickly gets over it and gestures for the bartender to get him another glass. The bartender comes with an extra bottle of soju, though Junmyeon’s bottle is still almost full. “To iron those wrinkles out of your face, hyung,” he grins, opening the new soju bottle with a light pop, “why the long face?”

“The usual,” Junmyeon says after pouring and drinking another glass. “Tiring day.”

Baekhyun hums, playing with his empty glass. He’s going to drink a maximum of three more glasses, Junmyeon estimates. Baekhyun has a fifty-percent chance of blacking out after five. His wildly fluctuating alcohol tolerance had been the highlight of their college-age days, always adding an unexpected problem at the end of their nights. Junmyeon waits for Baekhyun to talk—as he usually do, he’s an eloquent talker; Baekhyun’s a rambling talker, and faced with each other, Junmyeon usually lets him ramble—and he does too this time. Baekhyun rambles about his gigs for the day, about how Chanyeol’s pissed at him for dyeing his hair orange when Chanyeol’s been thinking to do the same, about anything and everything, and the distraction is something Junmyeon welcomes. On some days where he feels that he needs a distraction, it’s Baekhyun or Chanyeol he goes to. On days he needs calming silence, it’s Kyungsoo or Minseok. Today is the former.

It’s nice that it’s a bar, he thinks idly; Hongdae is full of clubs that are filled to the brim with college kids, and it’s often a throbbing pain for his twenty-eight year old head. He’d asked Baekhyun to meet today, and the younger man told him where his gig is instead of turning him down. It’s one thing Junmyeon appreciates about Baekhyun—though he has a schedule, he lets him know he’s welcome.

Baekhyun sings at bars, cafes, clubs, malls, birthdays, basically anywhere, except where he wants it the most: in a studio. Chanyeol joins him on half his gigs, when it doesn’t conflict with his teaching schedules and his work at the radio station. “There’s a special appearance by a girl group tonight on his station,” Baekhyun tells Junmyeon when he asks where Chanyeol is. “They’re _so _good, hyung. You know Mamamoo?”

Junmyeon does know, but says he doesn’t. He wants Baekhyun to talk more, ramble about anything. He doesn’t feel like talking too much today. And while Baekhyun does have his quiet moments, unlike Chanyeol who talks like there’s no tomorrow, he knows when he needs to continue talking. Junmyeon knows that Baekhyun knows that tonight, Junmyeon needs him to continue talking, even if he’ll zone out a number of times.

Baekhyun’s slurring his rambles by his fifth glass. Junmyeon’s drunk his bottle empty and his thoughts are starting to swim, yet offers to accompany Baekhyun home, really because he doesn’t feel like going to his. He should’ve stopped Baekhyun from drinking two more glasses, but he doesn’t, and he partially regrets it only as they’re out in the busy Hongdae streets, swerving in and out of people’s way, Baekhyun in tow as his deadweight, drunkenly humming _star, wind, flower, sun, and you _with perfect pitch. He narrowly pulls Baekhyun to his side when a small container truck pass, and stops just in timeto not collide with a petite woman. He bows and apologises, as she mutters an apology herself and whisks past them.

When they arrive at Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s shared apartment, answered by Chanyeol himself, Junmyeon practically shoves Baekhyun to him and crashes wordlessly onto the sofa.

The cheap sofa’s hard, and it’s not wide enough to be comfortable to sleep on, but it feels more welcoming than his expensive bed back home.

+

**(hongdae, joohyun)**

Her feet are hurting. But her stomach is, too, and Joohyun sighs as she slides her sandals over her socks, knowing that by the time she reaches the _ttokpokki_ stand she’ll be regretting the fact that she doesn’t wear her shoes instead. She’d make something, but she’s forgotten she hasn’t gone to buy groceries for the week, and was met by a wave of disappointment when she opened her fridge. She pulls her hoodie up and tugs the strings so it almost scrunches up around her face, and also pops the hood of her coat. It’s a Friday night, and Hongdae’s always full of drunk people. She’s not taking any chances in getting catcalled tonight.

There’s two people at the stand, a couple, and they eat their _ttok _slowly, more focused in feeding each other and occasionally wiping nonexistent sauce from each other’s lips. The _ahjumma_ doesn’t care, as Joohyun quickly loses her interest on them too. She eats her _ttok _and fish cake in silence, quickly, because she’s starting to lose the feeling on her only thinly-protected toes, and walks out after paying and muttering her thanks to the _ahjumma_.

So quickly does she tries to sprint back to her small studio that she nearly runs into two young men, when Joohyun zips out of the stand, unseeing the outside of the tarp curtain. The one with black hair apologises to her, bowing, concise and sober, while the one with orange hair, visibly much more drunk, only slurs his. Joohyun mutters her sorry, too; and goes past them towards her building, fighting the breeze, paying as much attention as she did just moments ago, not caring that she might run into more drunk men.

Her feet ache. And her legs too. She winces as she sits on her single bed, massaging them lightly as she lies down, and only stopping when she hears her phone pings.

From:** Yerim**

_Unnie don’t forget tomorrow!! I don’t have a shift so I’ll wait at the place after class ^^ Unnie has the gift, right?_

There’s a small blue box, a perfect size for a ring on her bedside table. The inside rattles, sounding plastic as she reaches out and tosses it into her handbag at the foot of her bed.

To: **Yerim**

_Don’t worry and go sleep quickly if you don’t need to study_

As she plugs her phone to charge, she knows the next _ping_ is Yerim replying with whines, jabs about how she’s no fun, complaints about how much she envies her friends and it’s been ages since she went out. Joohyun knows, so she doesn’t bother and plugs her phone in, wincing as she moves her legs around to bury herself in the blankets.

Joohyun doesn’t talk a lot. She can talk people into buying things she’s selling. Her job demands one who can talk to people and smile doing so, and Joohyun knows she can do it. She’s beautiful, soft-spoken, but firm. She knows effects she has on people, so for her work, she talks. But outside work she doesn’t talk, a lot, and neither does she text. The next _ping _would be Yerim again, this time saying _unnie, you’re already asleep? Ah really, why are you so old_, or an only slightly-off variation, so Joohyun ignores it, and closes her eyes, willing the dull throb of her legs to grow number in time.

+

**(samseong-dong, junmyeon)**

Meetings drain him. He doesn’t know anyone that doesn’t look as if life hadn’t been sucked out of their body after meetings. Perhaps he does know one—himself. He’s good in hiding his emotions. Not as good as Baekhyun, but he’s a very close second.

He smiles and bows at his supervisors who nod to him, smiles and nod to subordinates smiling and bowing to him. He pats on his team member’s shoulders and makes light talk about the new marketing plans; they whine, they groan because their workload increases, and he motivates them. It’s second nature for him to always do that—it’s a reflex, an unconscious response, to lift people up when they come to him down.

When he is, he doesn’t know where to go.

At four, he gets a text. Junmyeon’s tie is loose, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, piles of paper scattered all over his desk; outside his nice, glass-walled office, the core marketing & PR team of one of South Korea’s major department store is still busy, looking about twice as disheveled as he is, everyone ready to pull overtimes. It’s his mother, reminding him of his dinner date, and telling him not to forget to bring the small, white paper bag on his desk that their family driver’s dropped off in the afternoon. Junmyeon straightens himself, takes his tie off and exits.

He returns just a little before five, lugging two six-drinks packs filled with coffee and a box of a dozen donuts. The coffee shop-bakery is packed, and he witnesses people being evidently hurried, yet still staying in line—he absently wonders why they don’t opt for other coffee places. There’s bound to be plenty—but perhaps, he thinks, that’s just how human nature is: scared of change, scared of straying off of paths where others seem to thrive on. A woman three queues in front of him drops a small, ring box in her hurry as she balances her two bags and the large box of cake, and she thanks him as he return it.

His subordinates cheer. He tells them to buy food on him, and apologises for not staying.

+

**(samseong-dong, joohyun)**

She spends the day smiling—as she does, every day. Her feet hurts, but not as much as yesterday—yesterday’s shopping event opening was a nightmare. Joohyun, whose duty yesterday was to stand in high, _high_ heels that she’d only seen on celebrities all day long, in a pretty pink dress with her hair in loose waves, smiling as her arms grow more and more numb each passing hour, holding up a parcel display filled with cosmetics, perfumes in glass bottles, and one very beautiful rose gold necklace—_get it for KRW 500.000, only for a limited time—_was picked out from the other salespeople for, well, her looks. The event had had cosmetics brands setting up with their special displays, that’s going to stay for another month.

Today she’s out of the beautiful, flowing dress, and back in the navy two-piece, her department store’s salesperson uniform, her hair tightly bound into a clean bun. She still mans the stands, covering the area of jewellery. Joohyun is thankful, for her supervisor isn’t telling them to yell out promotions and for the fact that she can stand comfortably again, on her usual, short heels, her legs covered in stockings comfortably.

There’s not a lot of varieties, regarding the people coming and going through the upscale department store she works at. Most of them women—dressed to the nines, clearly trying to mask visible signs of aging on their skins; they ask _this _and _that _in condescending tones, and usually snaps off at the end if they’re not buying the item, to show, Joohyun understands, that _it’s not like I cannot buy this. I have more than enough money to buy ten, it’s just too ugly._

Sometimes there are men; usually confused, if alone, or, accompanied by a woman hanging by his arms. Sometimes, the men are way older, as old as her dad back in Daegu. These men who comes with their female partner shop with a certain sort of bravado not unlike the women who snappishly give signs that they’re wealthy. Joohyun’s stomach often churns at the sight, more so if she’s the target of these displays of bravado or snappiness, but she smiles, as she’s always told to, as she should.

The middle-aged woman in front of her, however, shows neither. The soft lines around her eyes, her smile, and the way her greying hair is neatly brushed into a low, loose bun; the way her dress and overcoat are nondescript but elegant, speaks of a refined upbringing that Joohyun never knew. Only her bag, black leather, with gold accents, is a clear display of her wealth.

“I’m looking for a piece of jewellery,” she says, “perhaps a necklace. A dainty one.”

Joohyun shows her an array of simplistic necklaces, with thin chains and a single, big stone, and the woman seems to like them, her hands, slightly wrinkly but soft and untouched by hard labour, touching each of the stones in fondness as she gushes over their beauty, but at the end she is doubtful. “These are all beautiful, but a bit old-fashioned, aren’t they?” She asks Joohyun, corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiles.

“Not at all, Ma’am,” Joohyun tells her, though there’s a little white lie in her words. “I think they will suit you very nicely. You have beautiful pale skin, and these stones will go beautifully with any of your clothes.”

“Ah, thank you, Miss, but this isn’t for me,” she tells Joohyun, laughing, correctly catching the fact that Joohyun picked out the ones suitable for a middle-aged woman, and Joohyun has the decency to feel slight guilt, “it’s for my future daughter-in-law.”

It’s a little unsolicited, but Joohyun doesn’t really mind when the woman reaches inside her expensive bag to take her phone out, and spends a couple of seconds looking for a picture. Joohyun finds herself looking at a breathtaking young couple in formal attires, standing side-by-side; so beautiful are the couple that Joohyun tries to remember whether or not she’s seen them, perhaps on TV.

“Isn’t she pretty?” The woman beams, smiling fondly as she looks at the picture again, and zooms in to the young lady’s face. She really is beautiful, Joohyun thinks, tall and slim, with her doe eyes and soft smile—the sort of angelic, natural beauty that’s laden with eternal innocence—but the woman’s son, too, is beautiful, his calm features royal and refined. She finds herself feeling longing, but can’t place from where—most likely from the happiness that radiates from the woman in front of her.

“Yes,” Joohyun replies truthfully, “she’s very beautiful, Ma’am, and she looks very good with your son too.”

The woman looks touched with her response—why, Joohyun doesn’t know; there won’t be a soul in the world that’ll say otherwise after seeing that picture. “You’re too kind, Miss,” she says, “oh, you know, you must be about their age. Tell you what, you’d know what young people like nowadays, right? Old women like me loves large jewellery, flashy things, but I don’t think you youngsters like those, do you?”

“Well, a lot of young people prefer simple pieces of jewellery nowadays,” Joohyun agrees, “they’re practical, and also elegant, Ma’am.”

“You should pick some you think you’d like, and that you’d think would look good on her,” the woman says; the wording surprises Joohyun, “can you help me with that?”

Joohyun does help her; only the whole time, as the woman compares the dainty pieces she picked, her chest feels tighter and tighter.

She still thinks of the woman, and the sheer love she has for a daughter that’s not even hers, even as Joohyun queues to get Seungwan’s cake at the bakery, her hair in a ponytail instead of her tight-bun, her handbag on one shoulder and her uniform bag on the other. She thinks of her mother, who showered her with love herself, but wonders if anyone will ever rival her mother in doing so—she’s never had a serious boyfriend, and the one she had, once, back in Daegu, when she’s still young and hopeful and trusting of the world—well, she doubted if his mother ever liked her. Her mind drifts to the young woman in the picture, beautiful, innocent-looking despite her evening dress, and thinks how likeable she must have been. Her ex’s mother would probably dote on the young woman too, she thinks, without venom, simply factual.

Joohyun’s still distracted by her thoughts of the charming middle-aged woman and forgets to put Seungwan’s gift, which she’d been playing with as she queues, back inside her handbag when accepting the large cake box in haste, and drops the small box. As she struggles to bend down she feels her phone vibrate inside her bag and panics; a man picks it up instead, and puts it on top of her cake box. Joohyun thanks him, and rushes out, willing her head to stop thinking of other people’s mother-in-law, but failing.

+

**(gangnam-gu, junmyeon)**

“You came,” she says, half-amused, half-disappointed.

Junmyeon slightly grins at her unenthusiastic greeting, and sits across her. She’d picked a great table in the expensive restaurant, by the large window, looking right to the district’s streets, busy cars zipping past each other. She looks stunning, as she always does, with her satin-grey dress shirt, falling loose on her shoulders, but she looks a little different. “You cut your hair.”

Yoona smiles. “How observant,” she says, appreciative but slightly mocking, “does it look good?”

“Do you have to ask? You know you look good with anything.”

She snorts, friendly and incredulous. “One would think you really do like me,” she says, gesturing for him to order, and calling a waiter at the same time. “Let’s order quickly, I’m starving.”

Talking with Yoona is easy, very much so—they talk mostly about work, about food, about inessential things that Junmyeon likes, for they keep his thoughts light. Yoona is friendly, fun and slightly devious despite her looks, and Junmyeon does like her. Not enough, however, and she, too, reciprocates the—well, the non-mutual feelings.

While he drinks his champagne, Yoona orders dessert; Junmyeon is always amazed at the way she eats without a care, and how her appetite seem to not affect her physique the slightest. When they first met she’d ordered an unholy amount of food and finishes them, to his slight shock, and over the months as they forged their very, very much platonic relationship, she’d revealed that she’d gotten such a stomachache after that first date, in her desperation to make him not attracted to her. The revelation had amused Junmyeon; and their friendship only grew from there, though their families thought otherwise.

She groans when Junmyeon puts the small paper bag on the table. “Oh no,” she says, “this _can’t _be from you.”

Junmyeon chuckles. “My mother picked it out.”

Yoona opens the gift, though, and sighs as she sees the necklace; it’s Junmyeon’s first time seeing it too. It’s pretty, a thin, white gold chain with a small sun pendant. “It’s so pretty. Why did you let her?”

“She didn’t really tell me about it,” he shrugs, “she put it on my desk and told me to give it to you.”

“Mmm, I don’t buy that. I bet she told you to tell me you picked this out yourself, while thinking of me,” Yoona says, grinning; Junmyeon laughs at her, because it’s true, his mother had told him that. She frowns, then. “At this rate she’ll buy our wedding bands and planned the whole thing already without telling us.”

Junmyeon drinks his champagne again, not responding; again, it sounds like something his mom would do, indeed. Yoona chews on her cake slowly, thinking. “We should stop pretending like this,” she says quietly, then, after minutes of silence, after she’d finished her whole dessert. “It’s… not very,” she frowns, “decent.”

“Why?”

“Do you _want_ us to get married?” Yoona asks him, incredulous. “Your family, mine, they all thought we’re getting along well, they thought we’re dating and their little match-up worked.”

Junmyeon thinks, his hand fidgeting with his empty glass. He tries to sort out his thoughts, but it doesn’t work, and he finds himself picking his words too carefully, then. “Then are you saying we should fight?”

“We don’t have to,” she says, equally slowly, her brows still furrowing. “We should just be… honest. Tell them this isn’t working out.”

The thing is, they don’t hate each other; Junmyeon doesn’t know how to tell her that, to his family, to his mom, probably, all the fact that they can’t feel romantically towards each other is incredulous, unbelievable, strange. He can’t just up and tell them that him and Yoona are friends, but not really interested in each other—they’d just tell him to wait it out, to win her heart no matter what, that feelings will grow in time. Junmyeon wishes it’s true, but he knows it’s not always is.

“I don’t… mind marrying you, you know. You don’t want to?” He knows he doesn’t sound hopeful, doesn’t sound heartbroken; he simply sounds curious.

Yoona looks at him like he’s crazy. “You’re out of it. Do you love me?”

Junmyeon stops playing with his glass and puts it on the table back. “You’re nice, funny, smart. You’re fun, I enjoy talking to you. You’re beautiful.”

“That I already know. Junmyeon, do you love me?”

Junmyeon looks at her; beautiful and wide-eyed and ethereal, her thin, pink lips, lipstick fading from her food. Her new hair, dark brown and falling softly around her face. He regrets that he doesn’t feel anything. “No,” he tells her truthfully, and sees that she breathes a sigh of relief. _I wish I do, then I can actually fight for something. _“There are couples who are set up, though.”

Yoona smiles, a bit wistful, and if ever, Junmyeon thinks it’s the fondest he’s felt for her—because just like her, he knows, they won’t work out, and they’ll be better off this way. “You know that’s not how I work.”

The silence that falls between them is strange, comfortable, and final. Junmyeon wonders why she’s so relieved—perhaps, she’s in love with someone else, or simply growing feelings, and while they’re fond of each other as friends, Junmyeon knows that he’s not within boundaries for her to give up everything. Neither is she to him, to be honest, but really, there’s nothing Junmyeon’s waging here.

“So, you flat out refused my proposal, and we’re breaking up,” Junmyeon says, willing for his voice to sound light, “you’ll have to be the one who dump me, you know. I can’t do otherwise.”

Yoona snorts at that. They’re not dating. “Bold of you to assume I’d let you dump me,” is her response. She closes the box of the necklace, and pushes it back to him; _you should keep this for someone you actually love, _is her unsaid words of good-bye.

As she hugs him farewell, Junmyeon wonders why he’s so relieved, too.

+

**(gangnam-gu, joohyun)**

The restaurant is not-so packed; just enough people for there to be a soft buzz inside, but it doesn’t make her skin crawl or incite a push to turn around and go home. It’s cozy, too—it’s a new trendy cafe, an indulgent outing for the five of them, but not so overindulgent that they splurge, after all, it’s located in a nook of a road, not some main-road, big-franchise restaurant or a rooftop one. Joohyun wonders what it’s like eating that high, when ferris wheels makes her stomach protest.

Everyone except Seungwan has arrived. Sooyoung’s hair is wet, as it always is after her job in the aquarium—she always washes herself so thoroughly that Joohyun never really remembers her smelling like fish as Sooyoung often complained, only a fresh, Kiwi scent from her damp hair. Seulgi has a butterfly drawing on her left cheek, remnants of her shift at the amusement park, probably. The two has always looked the wildest, most out-of-ordinary after their shift at respective jobs end. But also happiest, Joohyun thinks. There’s not a lot of things to be sad about when you work as a mermaid and a fairy princess.

When Seungwan arrives, they cheer—the surprise is a success. She was accepted to teach in a music school, singing and guitar, as she had wanted for so long, a feat, since she didn’t finish her own music education—and she’ll leave her job as a salesperson like Joohyun. She’ll work far from their department store complex, now—from where Seulgi’s indoor park is, from where Sooyoung’s aquarium is—near Ewha Women’s University—_Idae_, and the meet up is a small farewell of some sort. She’ll be closer to Joohyun’s small, college student-priced studio, yet Joohyun can’t shake the feeling of being left behind.

Joohyun smiles when Seungwan excitedly gushes over her gift of guitar picks; and wonders whether she’ll get what she wants in life, too.

But the thing is, she doesn’t know what.

+

_in my sleepless and waiting heart_

_I hope spring will hurry and come_

_so the spring wind, that comes after winter_

_can enter me once again_

**(hongdae, joohyun)**

There’s no day limit to Hongdae’s bustle; it’s a Thursday, but the street is packed the same. Joohyun likes it, likes the crowd and the noise and the hustle outside her humble studio, because it’s less silent that way, less lonely that way.

Ironic, because she just turned down the girls’ invitations—_begs_, really—to drink together in lieu of going home, and—drinking alone. She feels bad, really, and while she naturally, unconsciously mothers them—being much older and all—and now she’s beginning to worry whether they’ll be fine bar-hopping, she doesn’t feel like joining them. Joohyun balls her fists inside her coat pockets and pulls herself in as she braces for the hit of mid-November air outside the subway station.

At first she heads straight towards her apartment complex, planning to get one, or two—or three, she’s no lightweight—bottles of soju at the convenience store just a building next, but her feet detours at the last minute. There’s a small soju stand just halfway down this road, and if her luck would have it, it would be empty, and she can actually spend her night wallowing by herself instead of fending off rude men.

It’s not empty.

But almost; only one person sits inside, on his own, on the table at the furthest corner. He has his back to her, not quite slumping, and Joohyun, thankful, picks the other table next over; minding that it’s moderately spaced from the man. She asks the _ahjumma_ to give her a bottle and a plate of _ttok_, and sighs contentedly.

The man only looks at her for a split second, and nods politely as their eyes meet, before his gaze drifts back to the papers on his table. He’s good looking, and also looks a little familiar, but not so much that Joohyun tries to place her mind into it; as he focuses on his own business, she focuses on her own—eating _ttok _lazily, drinking her soju in one-shots, and thinking about everything and nothing at once. There’s a strange air of solidarity in the silence between her, the man a table over, and the _ahjumma_ and her husband behind the booth, talking in quiet voices laden with an accent that’s not hers.

The calmness soon breaks, however; and she immediately feels dread jumping out of her first, as she hears interposing timbres of low and scratchy laughters of a group of men. They enter, then, flipping over the tarp curtain way too-strongly she can see the tent shakes a little. Five of them, somewhere between thirties, and when one takes a look at her—alone, pretty, flushing from the half-bottle of soju she’s been ingesting, her fight-or-flight response flares.

Joohyun looks down, reaching towards her bag to get her money to get out of there. But when she lifts her head, she doesn’t find the leering gazes of the men on her anymore.

The man on the next table over is now in front of her, blocking her from their view.

+

**(hongdae, junmyeon)**

He must’ve been drunk already.

  
He’s drunk one bottle, and has finished two more glasses of the second—yes, Junmyeon thinks, he must’ve been drunk already, because the mid-yearly marketing reports he’s been trying to read to keep his mind busy has stopped making sense a while ago. But the woman next to him hasn’t finished her bottle yet, and she has another one unopened, and her _ttok_ more than half on her plate; and he sees from the corner of his eyes her tensing up as chatter and laughter of a group of men enters their hearing range, and he sees her reaching out to get her wallet to go.

So strangely, Junmyeon’s train of logic tells him to move over to the seat in front of her instead, as if it’s going to be less creepy than the group of men behind him.

“Ah, I…” he finds himself forgetting the flawed train of logic. “I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

The woman looks at him with questioning wide eyes, surprised, but she’s dropped her wallet back inside her bag; Junmyeon hears the soft _thud_ of it. She’s beautiful. Very beautiful. “You seem uncomfortable and wants to quickly leave once you see them,” he says, fluently, without slurring, to his own surprise, “and I see you haven’t really finished. If you don’t mind, I’ll sit here to block your view of them so you can drink in peace. I’ll stay silent too.”

Because for some reason, he doesn’t want her to go. There’s a weird comradeship in two strangers, each lonely on their own, who’s each drinking alone in a comfortable silence, with the background sound of one of the city’s trendiest district behind them. It’s a strange reason, Junmyeon thinks.

“Or if you still want to go, of course it’s fine,” Junmyeon adds with an easy smile, his embarrassment tugging him to pour another glass from his bottle. “I’m just—nevermind. I’m sorry.”

The woman sits silent, stunned, but she slowly pours more alcohol too, into her own glass. “No… thank you,” she says, her glass halfway already between the table and her lips, her voice soft, but firm. “Thank you,” she tells him again, before downing the glass in an impressive one-shot.

Junmyeon nods, and lifts his glass to his mouth because his throat feels dry. The woman is beautiful—very beautiful, maybe as beautiful as Yoona. Maybe more. Her hair, dark brown, straight and messy, falls around her face, and sticks out in places. She runs a small hand through it, and it falls all over to the right side, and she looks breathtaking. He must be drunk. Junmyeon doesn’t think of telling her his name, not trusting himself to talk anymore. He’ll finish the remaining of his second bottle and go, hail a cab, back to his comfortable, cool bed in Apgujeong. Or maybe he’ll wait until she finishes, like he said he would. He’s not really sure.

He’d wanted to go to Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s, at first. The dinner with Yoona—though they’re not dating, though it’s hardly a breakup—the remnants of champagne on his tongue, has left him with an itch for a more casual, harder alcohol. But he stopped himself from calling Baekhyun, for a reason he, too, doesn’t know, and decides that he’ll be fine drinking by himself. He’d walked aimlessly, feeling a little foolish—or a lot, because he was not heartbroken, and wandering around a neighbourhood miles away from his, without any semblance of a purpose, was not a _not-heartbroken_ thing to do.

(Or so he thought, because he pictured the way his mother’s face falls when he hands the necklace back, and his heart ached, because no, he’s not heartbroken, but she will be, and then _he _will be.)

So to top his stupidity off, Junmyeon walked, and walked until his feet, in his handmade leather shoes, throbs from the cold, and he decided to finally enter one of the dinghy, tarp tents of soju stands. He took a random handful of paper to pretend he had something to do other than stupidly drink alone, outside, in the winter, in a neighbourhood miles away from his home.

Then the woman came, and she looked a little familiar, but Junmyeon’s already drunk half a bottle and it’s not polite to stare, let alone to stare at a woman drinking on her own, so he continues to read his report, his brain going in and out of focus like a camera, until his alcohol-laden train of logic brings him to sit in front of her.

But as her cheeks grow pinker, the woman starts to talk, in her quiet, but firm voice. Maybe, she, too, is growing drunk. Her name is Bae Joohyun, she tells him. _What’s your name?_

“Junmyeon,” he answers. Joohyun no longer looks familiar, just pretty. “Kim Junmyeon.”

She doesn’t repeat his name, only nods, and eats another piece of _ttok_.

+

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

Sometime along the night, Junmyeon starts taking pieces of _ttok _from Joohyun’s plate, and then she orders a plate of _pajeon_, which they share, too. Then Joohyun finishes her second bottle, and Junmyeon, long since finished his, orders his third—but she takes it instead, pours it to his glass, and then hers; and their third bottle is finished together. Sometime along the night, Junmyeon shoves the reports papers back to his back, where it’ll probably get wrinkled, but it doesn’t matter, because the tip of it is already stained with the _ttok_ sauce.

Sometime along the night, Junmyeon fails from stopping himself to ask her why is she drinking alone.

“I could have drank with my friends,” Joohyun smiles, “but I don’t feel like it, and now I regret it.”

“Because now you’re drinking with a strange guy?” Junmyeon asks. It’s nice drinking with Joohyun, he finds, even though they barely hold any conversation. Maybe because she’s lovely to look at.

Joohyun laughs, and she thinks, she must be drunk, but it’s nice drinking with Junmyeon, she finds. He’s quiet, like Seungwan, and perhaps it’s because they’re strangers, but he doesn’t pry, like Seungwan and her sometimes worried nature. “No, you’re not strange. I like drinking with you,” she says, “I regret it because now I’m not there to keep an eye on them.”

_Weird_, Junmyeon thinks, _you sound like me_.

“I do?”

He only freezes up a moment upon realising he’s said it out loud, but easily accepts the slip-up. “Yeah. About years ago, in college,” he takes another cut-up piece of _pajeon_. “You’re the oldest, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Joohyun answers. She wonders what makes him stop sounding like her—but she thinks she knows. It’s why she’s drinking alone, and then with him, tonight. “Are you still close with them?”

Junmyeon grins, easy and proud, and fond, and Joohyun finds him charming. “Yes. Minseok’s a coach, Kyungsoo’s a chef. Chen and Chanyeol teach music, Chanyeol also works in a radio…” he frowns, and unconsciously counts on his one hand, which Joohyun finds amusing, “Baekhyun sings, Jongin and Sehun’s overseas doing what they do. Yeah, I’m close with them still.”

The description’s vague, and not answering her question, only raising more. _What about you, what do you do? Where are they? Why are you drinking alone? Why do you look alone? You're the oldest, you say, how old are you? _Maybe the vague reply and the names he drop that she’s forgotten already is answer enough; she realises, that they’re busy and that’s why he’s alone.

“So why are you drinking alone?” Is the question she asks him in turn. There’s no bite to the question, nothing accusatory, simply a question in return, from what he asked her. Junmyeon smiles again; he smiles a lot, he’s naturally smiley, Joohyun thinks. “Obviously not to read whatever it is I smeared _ttokpokki _sauce on.”

“No,” Junmyeon laughs, “I got dumped.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Junmyeon breathes a laugh again, shaking his head. “Don’t be. We’re still friends. We’re just friends. We’re not dating, even. We’re—our parents set us up, you know. I think we’re better off as friends anyways, and she’s very nice. Maybe she has someone else, who knows. It’s fine, and I’m not heartbroken or anything, just,” he’s rambling, Junmyeon thinks. It’s easy being silent with Joohyun with their respective soju bottles and glasses between them, a line on the table where her now-empty plate is, but it’s also not hard talking to Joohyun with a bottle they’re sharing between them, a plate almost empty save for two slices of _pajeon_. It’s easy after the line’s crossed. Maybe he’s actually already drunk out of his mind, maybe she is too; Junmyeon doesn’t remember who crossed the line, did she offer him her _ttok_ or did he absently took a piece?

Joohyun thinks of the woman in the afternoon, buying a necklace she picked out—she suggested—for her future daughter-in-law, and Joohyun’s heart sinks. _Oh_, she thinks, as she looks at him, his soft eyes, the smooth slope of his un-crooked nose, his small mouth, the almost perfectly-proportioned forehead peeking behind his hair, lightly tousled by November wind. Junmyeon no longer simply looks handsome, but much more familiar. The refined, almost royal features. Eyes that crinkle when they smile. _Oh._

“Your m—your parents,” she says, slowly, “you’re afraid of breaking their heart.”

Junmyeon looks at her, perhaps in awe. Joohyun, whom he just met, who sounds like him, who sounds like she understands. Who looks breathtaking, who looks just as lonely.

Sometime along the night, two of the five men on the other table stop being boisterous, and slump on their table, while the remaining three try as their might to not do so, slurring their conversation, trying helplessly to pacify one who starts to curse out his ex-wife. They got another bottle; totalling six, now, on their table, and Joohyun thinks it’s screwed up, how she tells Junmyeon that her place is just a very, very short walk away, when she knows her head’s as clouded as his eyes are. Junmyeon ends up paying for everything, and ends up stumbling with her to her small studio, and ends up with his lips on Joohyun’s.

_It’s screwed up, it’s screwed up, it’s screwed up_, Joohyun thinks, but she doesn’t stop him. Junmyeon stops himself, though, and sighs, taking off Joohyun’s coat to usher her into her bed, easily visible from her front door, and tucks her in. His lips were on hers just moments ago, or maybe minutes ago, ages ago. Joohyun’s head swims. He mumbles about _let me crash here_, but he doesn’t wait for her permission, and settles on her couch; he does that way too often, Junmyeon thinks, collapsing on other people’s couches.

Sometime along the night Junmyeon wakes with a painful neck and a more painful headache. There’s already a sliver of light peeking through Joohyun’s small window. She sleeps unmoving, peaceful, beautiful and serene. She looks a lot younger, he thinks, but he doesn’t remember ever exchanging their ages. He should go, he thinks; he should go back to shower at his place before work, and she, too, has to prepare for work, but he doesn’t move from her couch, folding his legs, looking at her still. Her apartment’s as big as his room, but it's warm, and smells like flowers, and Junmyeon doesn’t believe in love at first sight, and he’s not in love with her yet, but he thinks, _and she’s here_.

+

**(samseong-dong, joohyun)**

Life’s a bit mean like that, Joohyun thinks, when she’s called in from the backroom making gift boxes for a returned item—it’s a little mean, she thinks with her chest feeling strange, like how mean it had been a couple days ago, when she woke up in her apartment, alone yet again though she vaguely remembered she shouldn’t have been. _Smile, smile_, she thinks, because her manager’s here, and she’s been told that she doesn’t look friendly once.

He doesn’t look only familiar anymore, because it’s him—_Junmyeon; Kim Junmyeon_. He looks at her with a much more surprised expression than her smooth, composed smile, an open box on the glass counter.

“Can I help you?” Is what she says to him, though a part of her wants to ask other things, after her coworker leaves. “Are you here for returns? Sir?”

There’s a little—just a little—self-satisfaction in watching Kim Junmyeon trying to find his voice, his footing as she smiles, natural, businesslike. She moves to pull the box towards her, the white gold sun blinks at her, reflecting the lights above. “When is this purchased, Sir?”

“A couple days ago,” Junmyeon answers, finally, a smile now also settling on his face—but not a professional one like hers; his smile is resigned, defeated. “Maybe you remember the day, Joohyun-ssi.”

“I’m sorry,” she answers, robotic, “we see a large number of customers everyday.”

Her heart’s beating faster, she notices, as they fall into silence—a strange one; but not one between strangers. Junmyeon’s standing closer, she notices, almost leaning on the glass counter—_please don’t lean there, sir_, she should say, but she doesn’t. Junmyeon licks his lips, trying to form words, because he knows Joohyun won’t. Joohyun vaguely remembers his lips, but at the same time, she’s forgotten.

“What—what time will you finish?” He asks, and her heart flinches. “Joohyun-ssi, maybe—“

“Do you have the receipts of the returned items, Sir?” She says hastily, cutting him off—it doesn’t sound professional, not robotic enough, too panicked. Junmyeon stops, and looks down; next to her hand is the receipt he’s put there long before this re-encounter. Joohyun looks at her hand. She doesn’t realise she’s been gripping on the box of the necklace the whole time. “Ah, I’m sorry—“

“No, it’s fine,” he cuts her off, this time, and Joohyun can feel her face flares; too flustered to look at him. When she does look back up, Junmyeon smiles at her—resigned, defeated—and takes the box from her hand, his hand lightly grazing hers, causing her to withdraw them, as if she got burned. Junmyeon closes the box; sending the glistening sun back into darkness, and shoves them inside his coat pockets, leaving the white paper bag in front of her. He smiles again, but Joohyun doesn’t know what’s in his eyes. “I think I’m not going to return it after all.”

+

**(samseong-dong, junmyeon)**

It’s cold. So, _so_ damn cold, but life’s a little cold-hearted like that, he thinks, as he tries not to shiver, and fails. The bulky, necklace box is still inside his coat, cool to the touch, rough against the smooth inner lining of his pockets. It’s ten-twenty, and he’s spent a little too much time holed in his office, looking for reasons to work overtime and finding way too many. He should’ve brought something, he realises, but it’s too late. Junmyeon leans against a small width of wall between glass displays, waiting, for someone who won’t be pleased to see him there.

Life’s a little cold, Junmyeon had thought, when Joohyun walks out of the employee-only room to help him with the return of his mother’s gift. Her hair was sleek, tidy, professional, pulled back to a bun, unlike what he had remembered it to be: messy, wind-struck, fallen to the right side. But she looked beautiful—very beautiful, still, and Junmyeon’s heart had dropped.

Their exchange, with the glass table filled with millions of _won _worth of gold and sterling and precious stones between them, had been short—much shorter than when between them is a cheap plastic table littered with soju, empty _ttokpokki _and _pajeon _plates, or when between them there’s nothing at all. Yet it felt drawn out, like in a slow motion, like a haze, and emotions had passed through Junmyeon’s being like flash animation, guilt and relief and happiness and realisation and embarrassment and god knows what else. Maybe she’s finished her shift hours ago.

But then she walks out, in her hoodie and padded coat and her hair like when he made the split-second decision to sit in front of her, in a hero-complex gesture of trying to shield her from being harassed by a group of drunk men. Dark brown, messy, falling about her face.

She parts ways with her co-workers, going towards the opposite of the aisle, bowing, and walks to him—and stops. Junmyeon’s reflexes flare, and he jogs to her, thinking she’s going to turn around and avoid him, but she simply stands there, looking blankly at him.

Again, there’s that odd time-lapse he feels when he doesn’t know what to say to her; then, he begins, with an _I’m sorry_, because he doesn’t know how else to begin.

“For what?” Is her cold response. She’s bringing two bags again, one on each shoulder.

  
“I don’t know,” Junmyeon hesitates, “for crashing on your house… and not notifying you when I leave, for…”

He trails off. He really doesn’t know what to apologise for—he feels like he should, though. Joohyun has a strange look on her face—confusion, dismay? “I didn’t think we’ll meet again,” he says, regretting it as soon as it comes out of his mouth. Junmyeon’s an eloquent talker; but not now, for some reason, not now.. “I don’t mean that—“

“It’s fine,” she says curtly; hurt flashing in her eyes, though she doesn’t show it anywhere else. “People like us shouldn’t meet more than once, anyways.”

The jab hurts him, too; and Junmyeon thinks—it’s easy with Joohyun, being hurtful to each other like this unconsciously. “That’s not what I meant, Joohyun-ssi.” And it’s true, because the small, cramped apartment, the cheap sofa that hurt his neck, even cheaper than Baekhyun’s, the blatant difference of the lives they’ve lived that he’d easily seen when he woke in the dawn, wasn’t why he left before Joohyun woke. He left because how much he wanted to stay, how much he wanted to visit the space again, maybe sober and in love, next time, and it had scared him.

Until he walked into the store, trying not to think of his mother’s disappointment over the weekend when he told her it’s “over” between him and Yoona, the way Joohyun stopped when she saw him, the way it made sense, how she knew. What are the chances, he’d thought. But it made sense, that perhaps, a higher force was trying to tell him something. But now he’s here, trying to be brave, and Junmyeon thinks, _maybe the higher force’s wrong, for once_.

“Maybe,” she says, and he can see her withdrawing in like a scared critter, wary and tired of life, and Junmyeon doesn’t want to push it. “But it’s enough heartbreak for your mother already, Junmyeon-ssi.”

It is. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. Junmyeon feels stupid, suddenly, for coming here again, waiting for her to walk out of her job, when he hadn’t known what to expect—did he expect her to smile, to turn pink, to be happy to see him again? After all, they had only met once, and only shared several bottles of soju, two plates of snack, and a kiss neither can remember.

Joohyun tells him she’ll be going home, and to keep the necklace, to not return to see her again. Junmyeon watches her leave. Maybe the higher force’s wrong, this time.

+


	2. 2

_flowers are blooming, soaking up the warm sun_

_they become small dreams_

_each flower petal is blossoming_

**(itaewon-ro, joohyun)**

Joohyun loves Seungwan, truly does, because Seungwan’s a sweetheart who’s kind and sweet and someone reliable to lean on. Seungwan, who sings better than anyone she knows, who approached her first despite her being younger, back when she was first hired in the department store, who has perfect English from her childhood in Canada. Seungwan, who abuses said love by dragging her in this cold, _so _cold, end of November, to accompany her to the birthday of a man she doesn’t know.

She had tricked Joohyun, at first only asking her to help pick out a gift. “His name is Chanyeol,” Seungwan says, “he’s pretty much the most popular teacher. Kids, teenagers, people love him.”

“And you too?”

“No,” Seungwan says, but her ear turns red, “I mean, he’s nice. A little loud, but he’s so nice. I’ve only been there for two weeks or so, but he invited me to his birthday dinner with his friends, and he even said I can bring a friend too.”

“That’s because you’re pretty,” Joohyun sighs. There’ll probably be friends of this Chanyeol, guys, and Joohyun dreads it a little, but Seungwan seems nervous and giddy, and she doesn’t want her to go into a dinner full of guys alone. “What does he teach? Guitar too?”

“That’s the thing,” Seungwan says, sounding a little devastated, a little love-struck, “he can do _everything_. Piano, guitar—electric and acoustic, unnie—and drums. And bass. And he also works in a radio station—he’s absolutely crazy talented. And I also don’t understand how he can juggle everything all at once.”

Joohyun smiles, because Seungwan’s admiration is cute, and has to relent to joining the dinner. Seungwan’s picked out her outfit carefully, she notices, pretty in her white sweater and jeans and a blue fleece coat, and she also wears a simple pin on the right side of her bangs. Joohyun hadn’t been prepared to actually join the dinner, feeling a little underdressed in her black hoodie and padded coat, and glasses too.

Itaewon is almost like Hongdae, in that it’s a bustling area, with a lot of young people and tourists alike—more so tourists. The cafe is on one of the more crowded alley, a fusion between cafe and bar with nightly live music everyday; which Seungwan likes and Joohyun doesn’t mind. She can hear music coming from different restaurants and pubs along the alleyway, mashed on top of another, buzzy, somewhat inviting. The cafe is on the second floor, though, and below it is a dessert parlour that’s not as loud; Joohyun thinks maybe she won’t regret going with Seungwan like this. It seems like the place isn’t as loud as the others, she notes contentedly, as they enter.

“Um,” Seungwan hesitates, a little awkwardly, when the front-door host asks her how many seats she wants. “Maybe it’s reserved… under Park Chanyeol?”

The young, cheerful host nods and walks them to a table way inside the cafe; it’s not jam-packed, but there’s barely a completely empty table. Seungwan links her arm with Joohyun, who, as usual, feels a little dread building up as the host escorts them to where several men are sitting, and Seungwan’s nervous too, as she can feel her tightening her hold on her arm. It’s two tables fused together, on the far corner of the small stage, where a pink-haired man is singing his heart out of the bridge of an old popular ballad, and another man plays the piano. Three men, and one woman—Joohyun notes thankfully as she does a mental headcount—all turn their heads toward them, and she feels her body unintentionally tensing up.

The way the world works is a little crazy sometimes, she thinks as she forced herself to lightly bow, as Seungwan did, when Seungwan introduced herself as Chanyeol’s friend from the music school. Joohyun doesn’t even know which one is Chanyeol—the boyish, young-looking one with monolid eyes, or the one with downturned brows and kittenish smile, who has his arms around the only woman. She hopes it isn’t the one with his arms around the woman, because it’ll render the reason why she accompanied Seungwan useless. But Chanyeol is sure as hell not the pale man with his black hair, lightly tousled by the winter. With his small mouth, the smooth slope of his un-crooked nose. His soft eyes.

Chanyeol sure isn’t the one she knows as Junmyeon.

+

**(itaewon-ro, junmyeon)**

On occasions like this, usually he’s the one who talks; out of habit, he’ll begin conversations with the new people who just got to meet their friend group, like a spokesperson of sorts. He’ll tell them welcome, introduce himself, and introduce the rest of them by name, before his more-chatty friends take over and chime in with their teasing questions, before Baekhyun or Jongdae or Chanyeol ease the new person into talking and laughing more with them. It’s an ingrained dynamics within them.

Not tonight, though, Junmyeon is caught off-guard, his mind unable to form a coherent sentence, when a familiar—both familiar, and pretty—woman with her friend walk up to their table.

“Hello,” the one he’s never seen before says shyly, as they both bow, “I’m Wend—Seungwan. Son Seungwan, um, Chanyeol-ssi invited—I’m his friend from the music school—oh, thank you, excuse us.”

He’s thankful, really, that Jongdae’s brought Sunyoung with him, because she’s cheery as ever, and she warms up immediately to the newcomers, because though not minding being the only woman within them, she’s happy to see other women as well. She tells them to sit before Seungwan’s introduction is over. Junmyeon doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to think; the seating arrangement’s a mess, he realises, when the two women moves to sit.

“This is Joohyun unnie,” Seungwan says, loosening up; it’s a little clear that she’s not shy by nature, only shy by association, as a girl that Chanyeol invited. “Joohyun unnie is a friend of mine. Chanyeol-ssi said if I don’t fancy going alone I can bring a friend.”

Jongdae sits in front of him, with Sunyoung to his left, opposite of a single empty chair to his right. Next to Jongdae, Minseok; and two more empty seats. Junmyeon’s the only one sitting on his side, and to his left are three more seats; so Seungwan makes a visibly unwilling Joohyun to go in first towards him.

“Classic Park Chanyeol move,” Jongdae says, laughing, and Sunyoung slaps him on the thigh, though she’s grinning too.

“At last, some girls I can hang out with when I have to go out with these guys,” Sunyoung says, breaking out of Jongdae’s half-hug to stand and shake the women’s hand over the table, “I’m Park Sunyoung. Kim Junmyeon, Kim Jongdae, Kim Minseok. Evidently they’re not related, though monkey brain-wise they are.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, Minseok oppa, even you. Only Kyungsoo has a human brain, and he’s not a Kim.”

Junmyeon lets the playful insult slide, and barely moves; as with Joohyun. He hides his silence behind his glass of ice tea, pretending to slowly drink, not really daring to turn his head around to see Joohyun. _What are the chances_, he thinks, half disbelieving. _This is just life screwing with me. _Because really, what are the chances that the girl Chanyeol most likely fancies, whom he invited to this twenty-seventh birthday dinner of his, is good friends with Joohyun; Joohyun, whom he met by chance the first time two weeks ago. The second time a little over a week ago. And now—the world is big, and Seoul’s not the world, but it also isn’t small, he thinks, _what are the chances_.

He wonders, now, if even before, they’ve met, and some higher force is frustratedly trying over and over to make them _meet _for good.

“That’s Baekhyun on the stage, and your Chanyeol behind the piano,” Jongdae tells Seungwan, nodding towards where Baekhyun’s ending his song, soft and emotional, with his hand on his chest, “wow, look at him acting up.”

Sunyoung calls a waiter, and Minseok tells the two about Kyungsoo, who’s head chef of this restaurant—who’s actually off-duty, but is in the kitchen because he likes cooking for them like that; another old habit of theirs. Jongdae and Minseok, mostly the former, tell them about the food that Kyungsoo would recommend, which the women agree on, and the drinks, the various trendy flavoured soju, but Joohyun orders a bottle of just regular soju instead.

Baekhyun’s talking, now, after the applause over his performance had died down, and Junmyeon is thankful because of the distraction, and now they’re all looking up there at the stage, grinning. Baekhyun has a charm like that, of being able to pull his audience in, even if the audience is usually small.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, for the ones who just arrived, my name is Byun Baekhyun and though I only got two slots of songs left, I’m going to be your live entertainment tonight,” he says smoothly, perfectly fluid, he’s said it the lot of times. “And this is my talented, gifted, amazing, handsome—“ their table laughs, and so do other guests on other tables, and though Junmyeon can’t, he still cracks a smile. He can hear Chanyeol’s _hey, shut up_ faintly, but he can vaguely see Chanyeol grinning, embarrassed. “—not to mention _single_ friend, Park Chanyeol behind the piano. It’s getting even colder and colder, isn’t it? That’s why we picked out some sweet, calming songs tonight so we can be comfortable and warm here. We’ve just played Clean Up by The Ray, I hope you enjoyed it.”

“And maybe there are foreigners in here,” Baekhyun continues, in unbroken, but simple English, pointing to a table where a young white couple wave their hands. His voice always drops an octave when he does so; he’s good in giving intermission speeches in English, Junmyeon knows, because he’d came to Baekhyun’s gigs a number of times, and sometimes, in places where tourists might be present, he did his simpler, shorter speeches in English, too. “Hello, I am Byun Baekhyun and this is my good friend Park Chanyeol. We hope you enjoy our performances tonight. It’s getting cold here in Korea, right? The last song is called Clean Up by The Ray.”

“Despite the excessive butter-up, he’s really good,” Sunyoung compliments, sounding awed, “he can even DJ for a radio. He’s really smooth.”

Baekhyun is really good at talking, Junmyeon acknowledges fondly. Not like him, who’s good in an eloquent, professional and spokesperson-like way, but Baekhyun is good in talking comfortably, making people listen to him and enjoy his rambles and his stories. He doesn’t have a soothing talking voice like Kyungsoo does, and when they talk, as friends hanging out together, he’s _loud_, but on moments like this he’s excellent.

“He’s good because he talks a lot,” Jongdae replies, fondly. “There’s nothing he enjoys more.”

“He’s on to something, though,” Minseok points out lazily, because Baekhyun is now looking at their table, scheming smile on his face.

“Usually for two last songs I let you, the guests, to request, but tonight’s a little special. You see, today is Chanyeol-ssi’s birthday—happy birthday, Chanyeol-ssi—and Chanyeol-ssi actually invited someone special.”

“Oh no,” Seungwan instinctively mutters.

“Oh no, indeed,” Jongdae says, snorting, “he’s such an asshole. I’m so sorry, Seungwan-ssi. Chanyeol should’ve warned you.”

Baekhyun is full-on grinning towards their table, now, and Junmyeon has to shake his head at him, but really, he’s Baekhyun, and this is how he is. “Miss Son Wendy-ssi is a vocal coach, a talented music teacher, and I’ve heard _incredible _things about her voice from a certain someone. For people who’s been here since I began one and a half hours ago, you’re bored with my voice, right? So I think,” he says, turning towards the crowd, Chanyeol already burying his face in his palms behind the piano, “I’m going to sing one last song, and for the very last one for our session, why don’t we have Miss Wendy come up here to sing with us? Sounds great?”

The floor is evidently catching on Baekhyun’s antics in embarrassing his friends, easily getting the insider joke, and a lot of guests are chuckling, but his table is in shambles, Jongdae and Minseok and Sunyoung exclaiming _oooh_ heartily, clapping their hands in delight. Junmyeon almost joins them, but as he turns back around, he meets Joohyun’s eyes, and realises once again how close they are, sitting side-by-side. Joohyun tears off her gaze first, and Junmyeon drinks his tea again, already halfway empty, his heart quickening its pace.

“I’m so sorry,” Sunyoung says, laughing. “Chanyeol really should’ve warned you.”

Seungwan is turning pink, but she’s shrugging it off, shyly admitting it’ll be fine. Junmyeon sees Joohyun looking a little worriedly at Seungwan, and again shifts his gaze. When Baekhyun starts to sing another song, this time by Onestar, Kyungsoo appears to join them, bringing the drinks for the rest of them and a bottle of soju that is Joohyun’s. As Baekhyun’s strong voice fills the room again, they shift back to a friendly atmosphere, with Seungwan asking Kyungsoo about his job in the restaurant, with Jongdae and her bonding over their shared occupational field, and Sunyoung cheerily asking the women about their ages.

“I was born in 1991,” Joohyun answers in her quiet, firm voice, “I’m twenty-eight. Seungwan’s twenty-five.”

“Joohyun-ssi is an unnie to me, then! I’ll pour your glass,” Sunyoung smiles, “I was born in ’93 like Kyungsoo, twenty-six. Jongdae, Baekhyun and Chanyeol, oppas by a year, Junmyeon oppa, by two, and Minseok oppa by three. Seungwan-ssi is the youngest, then.”

“We’re not going to bully you,” Kyungsoo quietly says, smiling. Seungwan laughs. “And Joohyun-ssi is Junmyeon hyung’s age.”

Junmyeon smiles, hesitant, and nods to Joohyun, which she returns, equally awkward. Junmyeon tries to blend with the conversation seamlessly, mostly in polite feigned interest at Seungwan, when really it’s a little tough to get around the fact that the woman who rejected him a week ago is right next to him, and that they have to pretend it’s their first time meeting, when god knows how many times they’ve actually met already, with all these coincidences. He idly contemplates what are they, really—to say Joohyun rejected him would be a stretch, because he hadn’t asked for anything, hadn’t had the chance to. They didn’t do anything other than sharing a couple of drinks, her letting him sleep on her couch, and a kiss; which Junmyeon, for some reason, feels a little more desperate to remember, now, that Joohyun is so close in his perimeter.

Baekhyun ends the yet-another heartbreak song, and Seungwan walks up when he calls her to. Their table all watch Baekhyun’s debauchery unfold with amusement, and amazement, too, with Seungwan’s hesitant confidence; Junmyeon catches Joohyun smiling, a fond, proud smile, when Seungwan sits next to Baekhyun.

“Why did he call her Wendy?” He asks Joohyun—the first thing he actually says to her directly tonight. Joohyun jumps a little when she hears him talking, but turns around to answer.

“It’s her birth name. She’s born in Canada, and moved here when in junior high,” Joohyun isn’t looking at him, though, but towards Sunyoung, Jongdae; the people opposite her in general. “She mostly goes by Seungwan, though, but sometimes, at our work—at her old work, she does use her birth name for professional things.”

Junmyeon notices that Joohyun’s cheeks redden after the long explanation, and wonders why his chest ache. “If I have an English name, I’d go by it forever,” Sunyoung sighs. Jongdae raises an eyebrow.

“Ah why, Sunyoung’s a pretty name!”

Sunyoung rolls her eyes; “Yes but I’ve always liked the name Luna. It’s so pretty, don’t you think?”

“Like the moon,” Joohyun says, to Junmyeon’s surprise. Joohyun smiles at Sunyoung, who beams at her. “It is a pretty name.”

“Hey,” Minseok says, turning their attention back to the stage, “look. Why aren’t they starting?”

Junmyeon tears his eyes off Joohyun’s side profile to watch his friends on the stage; Seungwan seems to have told Baekhyun what song she wants off-microphone, and instead of Baekhyun, it’s Chanyeol who shakes his head no, looking lightly panicked. _Oh_, Junmyeon wonders if it’s what he’s thinking. Baekhyun’s face blanks, before he turns to Chanyeol, his mic still on, and though a little ways from his mouth; _no, it’s fine, Chanyeol. I can. _Chanyeol seems to protest more, but Baekhyun’s already walking towards him, shooing him off from the piano, a strange smile on his face as he encourages Seungwan to turn her mic on. Chanyeol stands, awkward, all gangly limbs hung by his side, and, after helping Baekhyun and Seungwan with their microphones, somewhat dejectedly, he walks toward them.

“Am I the only one feeling uncomfortable?” Kyungsoo asks, leaning back with his arms crossed, looking a little confused. Junmyeon notices that most of the people in the cafe are expectant, but not as much as they are, simply casual, curious about the last song for the night. Chanyeol comes, then, looking dazed, and sits next to Kyungsoo, extending his arm towards Joohyun reflexively, politely greeting the new person first.

“Hi, uh, I’m Chanyeol. Nice to meet you,” he tells her, to which Joohyun mutters a greeting and a happy birthday. Junmyeon leans back on his chair, watching Chanyeol throw a worried glance towards the stage.

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae starts, “why—“

“Sorry for the delay,” Baekhyun’s voice says through his now-standing mic, friendly and normal, as he sits behind the piano. Seungwan looks shy, but innocently happy, as she waits for Baekhyun’s introduction; and Junmyeon sees that Joohyun, again, has the same fond smile. “So as I told you, today is my dear friend, our talented musician, Chanyeol’s birthday, and Miss Wendy-ssi here, and, well, me, as a pianist this time, we’re going to sing this song as a gift for him.”

“This is a really, really awkward gift,” Chanyeol mutters. “Just you guys see.”

Junmyeon sees Baekhyun inhale. “For the last song, here’s Kim Taeyeon’s You Are. Good night, and enjoy.”

“Oh,” Jongdae exclaims, eyes wide, as Baekhyun starts to play the piano intro of a song that Junmyeon would have thought Baekhyun never, ever would have heard in his whole life, with a practiced ease. “Ohhh. _Shit_.”

Sunyoung hits his stomach, and Jongdae whimpers. “Park Chanyeol, you can’t tell me you didn’t plan this with Seungwan-ssi,” he says, pointing a finger to Chanyeol, to which Chanyeol glares, and fervently shakes his head.

“I swear to God, no. And Wendy-ssi is too nice, are you kidding? And don’t tell that to her, she’ll feel bad.”

Kyungsoo snorts, though, and begins to drink his cocktail. “Karma at play,” he says simply, to which Chanyeol grins. Jongdae chuckles, Minseok shakes his head and sighs; as does Junmyeon himself. Only Joohyun seems unaffected by the commotion, simply watching Seungwan sings, looking fond and proud and thoroughly, genuinely supportive of her friend. It’s sweet, Junmyeon thinks, looking at how much the woman, who once had ended up drinking with him, in lieu of drinking with her girlfriends, holds so much love for the said friends. A little bittersweet, when he contemplates upon it.

He can’t see Baekhyun’s face, and though it’s a little worrisome, his friend plays the song perfectly, not missing a beat nor a note, and they watch, mesmerised by Seungwan’s strong, beautiful voice. Sunyoung leans her head on Jongdae’s shoulder; though a little sad, a little funny, they all enjoy Seungwan’s little performance, and Junmyeon is thankful Chanyeol invited her.

(Maybe it’s because she brings Joohyun, too, but still.)

Joohyun still has the same sweet, proud smile when Seungwan finishes the song in unbroken, perfect high notes. Junmyeon wonders why seeing Joohyun cheer on her friend makes him want to cheer her on, too.

+

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

The dinner went better than expected—Baekhyun seemed, to Junmyeon, his usual, cheery self, singing high praises for Seungwan and easing her into their circle’s dynamics with his nature. It grew more and more comfortable, with one, two, three more soju bottles they order—Junmyeon even caught Joohyun laugh and smile at Jongdae and Baekhyun’s jokes. Baekhyun made Chanyeol move next to Seungwan—who, clarified to everyone to simply call her Seungwan—so he can sit next to Kyungsoo; it made more sense, he argued teasingly, as Seungwan’s Chanyeol guest anyways. Seungwan is sweet, and easily blended in with them, and to Junmyeon’s mild surprise, Joohyun, too, seemed like she enjoyed herself for the most part, despite never talking to him directly.

When they begin to grow more excited and restless, Kyungsoo pulled the plug and kicked them out, not permitting them to get drunk properly in, technically, his workplace, and they decided to go to a _noraebang, _singing until their throats get dry, drinking until their visions sway, and it was a grand time. Jongdae, Baekhyun, Sunyoung, and Seungwan continued to kill their karaoke scores, even while they were giggling the entire time. Sunyoung giddily suggested them to form a quartet of some sort, to which Junmyeon witnessed Joohyun laugh at.

When the excitement slows, and Jongdae’s singing some painful, heart-wrenching breakup song, Junmyeon follows Minseok for a smoke break, wanting his head to clear up—mostly from Joohyun’s smile, Joohyun’s laugh, just—_Joohyun._ Minseok raises an eyebrow when he asks for one cigarette.

The nicotine rush somewhat balances out the alcohol in his system—though he didn’t drink much, it still clears up his head a little, as with the cold slap of Seoul winter air. He needs it.

“So,” Minseok begins suddenly, shifting from where they sit on a cold concrete block separating the shophouses, “you’re going to ask for her number, right?”

Junmyeon blinks. His cigarette is hung between his index and middle finger, the burning ash on the tip still stuck. He taps it to shake them off. “What do you mean?”

Minseok snorts, and takes a long, slow drag of his cigarette. “Joohyun. Don’t even try to deny it, there’s no way everyone didn’t notice your eyes on her the whole night. I mean, not that all of us didn’t stare at her on one point or another. She’s beautiful, but you’re looking at her differently, you know.”

Junmyeon figures it must be true, and because he didn’t really try hard enough to mask anything. “It’s not because she’s pretty,” he says, “it’s because she’s familiar.”

“Did you know her already?” Minseok asks, exhaling; both foggy breath and smoke melding in the cold air. “How?”

Junmyeon thinks how to answer it, and instead asks him back, “Do you believe in fate?”

Minseok laughs, and shakes his head. “Where does this come from? I mean, yeah, I guess. What, you think you and Joohyun are fated or something? Chanyeol’s the sappy drunk, you’re a depressed drunk. What’s this?”

Junmyeon has to grin at that, and he brings his cigarette back to his lips, inhaling before answering Minseok. “I guess you can say that I knew her. I mean, we’ve met,” he shrugs, “we’ve—I don’t know. It’s kind of complicated.”

“Life’s complicated, Junmyeon,” Minseok says flatly, “my advice is just slam through the complicated part to smooth it out.”

“And you’re a clingy drunk, not a wise drunk,” Junmyeon chuckles, “should I call you Minseokie-hyung?”

“Please,” Minseok scoffs, knowing Junmyeon won’t follow through. He drops the butt of his cigarette, and mushes it with his foot as he stands up. “This is because neither of us are drunk, I guess. But you know—oh, Joohyun-ssi. Where are you going?”

Joohyun stops just in time to not run into with Minseok—she’s swaying a little bit already, but she’s giddy, and she’s been enjoying the night, even though she’s been acting like Junmyeon isn’t there. And it’s petty, but it fed her ego that Junmyeon is the one looking more uncomfortable in their situation. So perhaps it’s because of her desperate attempt to ignore him that she finds herself having a little too much fun than she should, having a little too much alcohol than she should, in between people she doesn’t know—she wonders if Seungwan notices.

Joohyun pulls on the hems of her unzip padded coat close. “The minimart,” she says, “want anything? The others want some snacks.”

“Ah, those kids are so rude,” Minseok scowls, mildly irritated, “why would they make you do it? Junmyeon, can you accompany her?”

Joohyun finally glances towards Junmyeon, who’s taking one last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it dead on a nearby trashcan. “It’s fine, don’t bother. I want to get some air anyways.”

“No, it’s fine,” Junmyeon says too; and Minseok disappears before their eyes. Joohyun’s cheeks are flushing, he notices, like last time. He’s noticed that she’s been drinking a good amount of alcohol tonight, way more than he has. Maybe she isn’t prone to drunken mistakes. She looks small in her hoodie and unzip coat, her hair a little messy and her glasses, which he’s only tonight seen, is crooked slightly.

Joohyun doesn’t say anything and walks, not looking up to Junmyeon, but she also doesn’t quicken her pace to get away from him. She feels his eyes on her as they walk in silence, a small distance between them—or thinks that his eyes are on her—so she pulls the hood of her sweater up and sinks inside herself to hide. They’re not as drunk as they had been, six bottles of soju between them, and they walk straight, still, despite the occasional sway and brush-up of their arms, as they both have their hands inside their respective pockets. Sometimes, when she forgets to keep the distance, she catches the scent of Junmyeon’s cologne; the watery, cold scent, familiar and soothing, mixed with the smell of cigarette.

Junmyeon follows her wordlessly in the convenience store, carrying the basket for her but not questioning anything, nor adding anything inside. Joohyun gets potato snacks, wafers, and various cookies he vaguely remembers Chanyeol likes, and puts six small bottles of water inside the hand-carry cart carelessly, each one rolling with a thud that shakes Junmyeon’s arm. She asks the cashier for several strips of pain meds, too, which makes him smile.

She must’ve noticed it, because Joohyun averts her eyes. “It’s just in case,” she mutters, embarrassed; Seulgi and Sooyoung tends to get massive headaches on their hangovers, and it’s become a little habit. Junmyeon pays, because it’s things for his friends, mostly, and Joohyun doesn’t protest.

“Thanks, on behalf of the kids, in advance,” he says, and opens one bottle of water, chugging half of it down. He nods towards the cheap plastic barstools lined up by the glass window of the store. “It’s cold out. Do you want to sit a while?”

Joohyun wants to say no, but she finds herself following him, climbing up to the barstool. Junmyeon hands her a new bottle, opening the cap before giving it to her, and she rolls her eyes, though she accepts and drinks it. She doesn’t realise how thirsty she is—or how dry her throat feels, as she continues to drink until the bottle’s completely empty.

“Did you enjoy tonight?” Junmyeon asks, because he doesn’t know how, and where to begin. “You blended in really well with the kids.”

Joohyun finally straightens her glasses. Junmyeon, and Minseok too, earlier, calls their younger friends kids a lot, she notices. “They’re nice people. Your friends.” _You_. “And Seungwan likes them too.”

“She likes Chanyeol, you mean,” Junmyeon chuckles.

“Sunyoung is also very nice. Kyungsoo, too. Baekhyun’s a little loud, but he’s funny.”

“Yeah,” Junmyeon says, a little distractedly, for Joohyun lets down her hoodie, and brushes her hand through her hair, letting them all fall to the right side. “Kyungsoo is really nice. Baekhyun’s really, really nice too. He’s just a little bit of an ass sometimes.”

“What was that about?” Joohyun asks, curiosity getting the best of her. “When Seungwan wanted to sing, when Chanyeol went back to sit and Baekhyun played the piano instead.”

“Oh, that,” Junmyeon chuckles, shaking his head, “it’s a little hard to believe, though.”

_Try me_, Joohyun thinks, _we’ve ran into each other incidentally for a little too many times for me to not believe anything_. She simply tilts her head; they, for some reason, are now sharing an opened box of _pocky_, snacking on the things they claimed to their own selves are bought for the others, as if walking here is an excuse to get away and be alone together.

“Would you believe me if I tell you Taeyeon was his—Baekhyun’s—first love?” Junmyeon asks; he watches Joohyun’s eyes widen, then her forehead crinkle. “Yes, that Taeyeon. She was from his hometown, you know. Got in the entertainment agency because they saw her singing on a local event, you can even look it up. They were dating up until she debuted. Nothing too bad, just a somewhat sensitive issue.”

“Oh,” she exclaims. It is a little hard to believe, but sometimes life is funny that way.

“Life’s a little funny that way sometimes,” Junmyeon says, and Joohyun almost jumps in surprise, as if he’s just read her mind, but Junmyeon has his eyes on the alley outside, absently chewing on his stick of pocky, without holding it; with each chew the cookie stick grows shorter between his lips. Joohyun looks away. “He was pranking Chanyeol and Seungwan, and yet.”

“You smoke,” Joohyun says suddenly before she can stop herself, the way the cookie hangs on Junmyeon’s lips reminding her of earlier. There’s nothing accusatory to her words, it’s simply a statement, a clarification of sorts, since she never remembers any smell of smoke on him. _But then again_, she reminds herself, _we’ve only really met once._

“Only socially,” he shrugs, “I’ve stopped after college, but the nicotine tolerance’s still there.”

Joohyun snorts, taking the last cookie from the box. “The lung damage’s still there, you mean,” she says, before eating. Junmyeon smiles. She remembers him smiling a lot on their first meeting, and finds that she misses the smile. He hasn’t smiled as much tonight, oddly enough, when they’re out with his friends, having fun, instead of when they’re two miserable strangers drinking alone, until he’s decided they should drink miserably together.

“We…” Junmyeon trails off. They’re walking back to the _noraebang_, now, again, side by side; but this time, despite having sit down and sobering up for a while, drinking water and sharing a snack, they keep colliding, arms against arms, though they walk in a pin-straight line. Neither one of them tries to avoid the brush-ups, neither increasing distance. “We met again, you know.”

Joohyun knows. What she doesn’t know is why. She shrugs. “It’s just a coincidence.”

“Maybe,” Junmyeon agrees, “but it’s been three coincidences. At the very least.”

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe there’s going to be only three coincidences,” she says, a little spiteful, a little sad. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t—Joohyun doesn’t want it to be, but at the same time, she’s scared of ever meeting him again, because she doesn’t know what will come next.

“There’s Seungwan and Chanyeol,” he tells her, smiling slightly. “We have mutual friends, now.”

Joohyun scoffs. “Hardly. It’s not like Seungwan’s going to take me with her each time. It’s not like they’re going to work for sure anyways.”

Junmyeon laughs at that. “It’s fine rejecting me, but don’t reject Chanyeol for Seungwan, that’s a little mean,” he says. He looks at Joohyun, still smiling—his resigned, defeated smile, and Joohyun feels her stomach churn. “Maybe there’s not going to be any more coincidences.”

Because maybe there won’t be, and Junmyeon doesn’t want that. He remembers the soft scent of flowers in Joohyun’s apartment, her smile, the way she brushed her hands through her hair. He vaguely remembers the kiss, though blurry, remembers her clear, dazed eyes. He remembers the pain in his neck, and in his head, when he watched her sleeping, when he thought he wanted to stay.

They stop by the entrance before getting in. It’s so, so cold, and Joohyun yearns the warmth indoors, but she stops nonetheless, waiting for Junmyeon to speak, hoping—for what, she doesn’t know either. “Maybe there won’t be any more coincidences,” Junmyeon repeats, clearing his throat, “and the way we’ve met have been a little strange, each of them.”

He’s an eloquent talker, he thinks. But not with Joohyun, oddly, never with Joohyun—he either rambled, or he got words stuck. Junmyeon watches her wait, and decides, for once, _fuck it_.

“I want us to meet again,” he breathes, not caring if he sounds a little desperate, “I know I could’ve stayed, but I was—I don’t know why. Then I met you again, and I thought maybe it’s a sign that I should—that’s why I came back in the evening. Then you told me to not see you again, and I was prepared to never look for you again, because I’m not… I’m not someone who puts up fights a lot, Joohyun. But then tonight, you came, yet another coincidence, and now I feel if we part ways again, I’ll miss something for real. It’s a little overwhelming, Joohyun.”

It’s a little overwhelming for her too, Joohyun thinks, surprised with the way words flew out of Junmyeon’s mouth, a little desperate, mostly confused. He’s smiling a little, though—that sad, resigned, defeated smile, again, and Joohyun thinks, maybe, _just maybe_. “Okay,” she says, voice small, not firm, slightly wavering, “and—and now?”

“I don’t know,” Junmyeon tells her truthfully, running his hand through his hair. “I told you. I don’t put up fights, and this is confusing. If you don’t want us to meet again, I won’t—I probably won’t try. But if you do—“

“I liked drinking with you,” Joohyun tells him, and Junmyeon stops his fidgeting to look at her. Joohyun sinks a little, trying to hide her face. Her heart’s beating a little fast, a little loud, she notices, and it’s cold, and she doesn’t want him to see blood rushing to her face. “Maybe we could drink again. Sometime.” _Just us two_, she doesn’t add.

“We could,” Junmyeon says finally, long after finding his voice. _I liked drinking with you too._

They stand there, a little confused, embarrassed and happy, expectant and worried; strange mixes of emotions that makes Junmyeon wonders, are they normal to feel, is it normal to feel this much, for someone he’s really properly met once? There’s been a lot of coincidences, a little too many, and while each feels insignificant enough on their own, there’s something about their situation that makes Junmyeon feels as if he’s known her deeper than that, deeper than simply someone he’s shared drinks, and a lonely night with.

_It’ll be fine_, Joohyun hopes, when telling Junmyeon they should go inside, because they’ve gone for a little too long. A couple walks out. She catches a whiff of his cold, aqua cologne again, when he unintentionally presses closer as they avoid the couple. _Maybe it’ll be fine_.

+


	3. 3

_just like the cold and frozen season suddenly melts_

_maybe that’s how spring comes to me_

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

She liked drinking with Junmyeon—and not just drinking soju in a brightly-lit orange tent, awkwardness between them melting as the booze seeped through their system, as the night passed, as the winter chill felt less colder. Joohyun liked the quiet way they shared snippets of themselves, growing braver as the night grew, more comfortable. More familiar.

She didn’t only like that, though; she, too, liked the sober, calm conversations in a softly-buzzing café, hot coffee between them, as they asked each other _how was your day_ like it’s routine, like it’s not only their second (or third, or more) date. Junmyeon had asked her what she would like to drink next time they meet, and Joohyun laughed, because she did say she liked drinking with him, but really, it wasn’t the drinks—it was his company.

_Boba_, she told him, and laughed again when Junmyeon’s face drew a blank. _Let’s drink brown sugar boba next time, Yeri said it’s really nice_.

It’s a strange drink to drink by the river, no less in the winter, Junmyeon thinks, but Joohyun smiles that less-reserved, easier smile when he hands her the plastic cup of the sugary drink and the large straw. He had had no idea what she meant; and got a lot of smack from Jongdae when he asked—because Jongdae had a sweet tooth only rivalled by Baekhyun—and he had to stand in queue between high-school and college kids. He watches her sip on the drink and chew the round _boba _happily.

“Try it,” she says, grinning, but when Junmyeon is about to do so, Joohyun takes it from his hands and shakes the plastic glass, and pops the straw on for him. It’s sweet, _so_ much so, and while he isn’t really fond of sweet drinks, it’s nice, Junmyeon thinks, but maybe it’s because Joohyun is next to him in the passenger seat of his car, smiling at him.

“I never would have thought you have a sweet tooth,” Junmyeon says, chewing on the tapioca with mild bewilderment.

“Because I look bitter all the time?”

_Who ever said that to her_, Junmyeon wonders, because Joohyun is looking at him with bright eyes and a playful smile, sipping on her own drink. _They need to get their eyes checked._ “Because you drink soju in one-shots, not to mention you can pretty much handle three bottles,” he says, “you also got hot espresso last time.”

“Best of both worlds,” she tells him, and Junmyeon smiles.

They got out of his car, then, and walk along the riverside path. Han River Park is almost never empty, especially in evenings as the sun lowers; lovers, families, joggers, but it’s early December, and while the evening wind isn’t as harsh yet, it’s a little colder, a little less crowded. Joohyun likes the way the evening sunbeam hits Junmyeon’s black hair, giving it a brown gleam.

They talk about the day, about friends, about themselves as they walk. About light things—_are we drinking something else, next time? _Junmyeon asks, and Joohyun laughs. _No, we can eat something instead, if you want. _Joohyun tells Junmyeon about popular things people are enjoying, as told by her friends, she says; _those are the trends among_ _the kids these days_. Junmyeon laughs at her—_we’re not that old ourselves, Joohyun_; she points out that he and Minseok calls their other friends _kids_ all the time; _you didn’t know what boba is, Junmyeon_.

Joohyun stumbles towards him as they avoid two young boys in a tandem bike, and Junmyeon catches her elbow to steady her back. She looks up and smiles to thank him—she looks breathtaking, under the golden hour light like this, her eyes slightly glinting brown behind her glasses.

“We used to do that, my brother and I,” Junmyeon tells her. “Because we live in Apgujeong and it’s not that far, we would come down here when he was in high school, and I was in middle school.”

“It’s not like you can’t still do that now,” Joohyun says. _Apgujeong_, she wonders, all his life, he’s probably only lived in well-lit, wide, large houses with expensive furniture. “Well, if you two aren’t busy, that is. How far apart are you?”

_Very_, he thinks absently. “He’s older by four years. It’s been a while since we really talked.” A long while.

There’s no alcohol in their system; only sugar. Yet Junmyeon tells Joohyun, slowly unfolding things he doesn’t know why he thinks he want her to hear. And she listens—for some reason she doesn’t know, Joohyun wants to listen, wants to know his story—wants to know _him_, Junmyeon. He tells her about going into medical school, like his brother, and not being able to push himself to make it past third year. How he ran and enlisted without his parents’ knowledge, how he quit pre-med, to enrol in Design & Communications.

“That’s why a lot of my friends are younger than me,” he shrugs, “except for Minseok, who was Jongdae’s best friend first.”

He tells Joohyun, looking over towards the river as they lean on the fence, that he knows he’s being entitled, privileged, way too privileged for his own good; and it’s something of a regret. He says he knows that he’s being a whiny pampered child, that what he considers failures are not even attainable by people. He tells her that his parents helped him with his current job because he hadn’t known what to do next. He tells Joohyun, while laughing dryly, that he doesn’t know why he’s telling her this.

Joohyun blinks in response. There’s only sugar in their system, yet Junmyeon is laying out his insecurities bare, exposed to the nipping winter wind.

Junmyeon feels heat lurching upwards from his stomach, and runs a hand through his hair, stepping back. “Joohyun, I—I’m sorry,” he says, feeling a little stupid. Or very; very stupid. “I don’t know why I told you all that,” he repeats. “It—it’s cold, do you want to—?”

He’s a good speaker, Junmyeon thinks. _Just not with Joohyun, never._

Joohyun clutches the sleeve of his thick coat before she can stop herself. “No, wait, it’s fine,” she says. It really is. “Junmyeon—it’s fine.”

Joohyun is pretty like this, Junmyeon thinks distractedly. The golden sun making her eyes glint brown, the thin metal rim of her glasses blinking; the way her dark brown hair lightens under the sun. Her hands are still holding on to his sleeve. He wants so badly to brush out her hair, messily stuck beneath her scarf; to touch her, and Junmyeon reels from the thought.

“It’s fine,” she repeats, for the third time. Joohyun finally lets go of his sleeve. “Thank you for telling me.”

As they lean again on the fence, not looking at each other, between them silence falls; what do you do on times like these, Joohyun wonders. Does she tell him about her life, too? Does she encourage him? The thing is, she doesn’t know life that much either to give him words of encouragement, has her own wounds to heal from. Junmyeon’s silence is an awkward and embarrassed one, though Joohyun thinks he shouldn’t have been.

There are two brown bulbuls flying down towards the reeds by the river, one perking on a branch first, as the second follows; but the second one perches instead on top of the languid, wind-blown reed, and it promptly sinks from the little bird’s weight, diving down from view. The second bird re-emerges, and perhaps abashedly, finally joins the first one on the proper branch.

Joohyun laughs and points at them. “Look,” she says, and Junmyeon did saw the birds, but she laughs over them so freely, so spontaneously that Junmyeon is taken aback a little, “it fell.”

Joohyun continues laughing; for the dismayed bird’s misfortune is not that funny, but it made her laugh over the awkwardness that just settled between them. She laughs, because the situation is funny, how the birds made her laugh and Junmyeon is looking at her confusedly.

“Why are you so happy about birds falling?” He asks, perplexed.

“It’s not the birds, it’s,” she’s still chuckling, “it’s just. It fell. And we were being awkward, and it’s—it’s strange, but funny, because we’re being awkward.”

“I—I’m sorry I made things awkward,” Junmyeon says, still visibly confused, but he can’t help smiling amusedly at Joohyun, laughing gradually more and more, “but what’s so—“

Joohyun laughs. “Because it’s a little silly, don’t you think? We’ve been drunk twice, three times now, and never once did we overshare things until it’s awkward like this, it’s always just things like favourite food, and movies, and birthdays, and our friends, but,” she stops to laugh. Joohyun laughs loudly, in un-ladylike barks, tilting her head back as her laugh pitches high, and she knows it, but Junmyeon doesn’t seem bothered, only confused. “But I made you drink boba once and you lay out your life traumas.”

It _is _a little silly, Junmyeon has to admit, and now, he’s chuckling too, because Joohyun laughs like she doesn’t care, and it’s contagious. “I’m sorry for making things awkward,” he apologises, once again, a nervous hand on the back of his neck, “I really didn’t know why I told you all that.”

Joohyun smiles, and playfully hits his arm—barely a punch, barely a touch. “Don’t apologise, I told you it’s fine,” she says, “isn’t that the point of this whole, um, drinking something new each time, thing?”

Her light tap on his arm feels like fire to Junmyeon. She’s pretty; so pretty. She’s pretty when she’s laughing at him, pretty when she smiles like this, pretty when she fixes her glasses, which slides down a little when she laughed. His embarrassment for throwing out a vomit of word at her when the sun’s still shining out, when there’s no alcohol involved, only sugar and tapioca circles which sweetness he can still feel at the back of his mouth, still feels like a knot in his stomach, but much more untangled, now, after she laughed, and made him laugh, too.

Joohyun lets out a chuckling breath, the vapour fogging the lower part of her glasses, which prompts her to take it off. Junmyeon’s hands move on their own, it seems, when he finally gives in to whatever it’s been itching to do—he reaches out and brushes her hair out of where it’s stuck beneath her scarf, and when Joohyun freezes, he tucks her hair behind her ears. Her hair waves slightly on the points where it got squished under the scarf. Joohyun doesn’t put her glasses back.

“Yeah,” he says finally, when he remembers to breathe.

The walk back to his car is silent, but no longer awkward; it’s comfortable, like the silences they usually share. It’s getting windier as it darkens, and their hands are freezing, but they both let them hang by their sides instead of in their respective pockets; neither make any movements to grab the other’s hand, even after Joohyun’s cold hand brushes with Junmyeon’s warm one countless number of times.

Junmyeon insists on driving her home, failing to avoid answering when Joohyun asks where he lives now, whether it’s going to be an effort to drive towards Mapo-gu; the face she makes to show her displeasure when he tells her he still lives in Apgujeong, though not at his family home, is relentlessly adorable to him. He’s falling a little fast, he thinks. It’s tough not to.

“Daegu,” she answers when he asks back, where does she live during her childhood. She raises an eyebrow when he asks affirmation. “Why? Do I look like a Seoul brat?”

Junmyeon has to smile at her apparent taking offence. Joohyun’s way of asking the basis of his assumptions always sound like she’s heard things said about her more than once. “You don’t have any _satoori_ left,” he says.

Joohyun huffs. “Do I have to talk like this, then?” She shoots back in _satoori_, and smiles when Junmyeon laughs. The dialect feels almost foreign in her tongue, she notices, she hasn’t talked in it for years; she has nobody to call in Daegu. She misses talking in it.

“You can if you want to,” Junmyeon says. “I can’t speak in _satoori_ but my parents are from Busan, so I’m comfortable listening to people talk in it.”

Joohyun snorts. “It’s different, city boy,” she tells him, and Junmyeon laughs again when she calls him that. “I’ve been to Busan only once,” Joohyun muses, “it must have changed a lot. I’ve never been to Jeju, though—Sooyoung is from Jeju. When she talks in _jejumal_, it’s so hard to understand, but it’s fascinating.”

She’s already dropping the dialect again, sounding a little more comfortable in the standard Korean, and Junmyeon’s a little curious. “Does any of your friend come from Daegu?”

“None,” she says, not letting more. “Seungwan’s born in Canada, remember. Sooyoung’s from Jeju. Seulgi and Yerim is Seoul born-and-raised.”

“So only your family is there, now?” He asks, and confusedly frowns when Joohyun shakes her head. “No?”

“No,” Joohyun affirms, but she smiles cryptically, teasing, distracting. “Unlike you, I don’t spill my life story sober and sugar-fuelled.”

It’s perplexing, and piquing his curiosity, but Junmyeon knows that she’s retreating within herself, and if he knows anything, Junmyeon knows when to stop the best. He always does it first thing. So he smiles, too, and joins her jab at himself. “That’s why I don’t drink much sweet things, I guess,” he says jokingly, then, impulsively, “we can go to Busan sometime, if you’d like.”

Joohyun turns to face him, surprised—the suggestion is a little reckless, a little bold, though she thinks perhaps he’s been to way, way more places than just Busan, Daegu, and Jeju that it seems to not be a big deal. It’s surprising how easy they move forward, though not so smoothly, though it’s full of hiccups, it’s still easy. Surprising, how coincidences can lead to this. But most surprising of all is how ready she is to say yes, she’d like that.

Junmyeon’s ears are reddening a little, she notices. “Sure,” she answers, “I’d love that.”

+

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

As it has been, it’s easy to move forward with Junmyeon. His short texts turn a little longer, come a little more often, and soon texts turn to short, welcomed calls, and then it turns into hour-long conversations over the phone. He’s a busy person—that, she already figures—but he tells her when he’s going to be off-the-grid, and calls her after. It’s been a little over two weeks since she got dragged to Seungwan’s friend-or-something’s birthday dinner, a little over two weeks since the third (at least) coincidence that led her to stumble upon Junmyeon. Strangely, it feels a lot longer than that, everything feels natural, like it just comes automatic.

For some odd reason, Joohyun wants him to meet her friends. She wants to show him off, but it’s an ongoing internal debate—she doesn’t want to do in a crass way, _here’s a well-to-do guy I’ve been seeing_, it’s more something over the lines of, perhaps, _this is mine_. It scares her to think so, because she doesn’t know if he even wants the same, if he doesn’t think of her the same. It scares her to find that she wants to have him—because there’s always, always the shadow of doubt and improbability over them. There’s no basis whatsoever to their relationship—if she can call it that—and it makes her heart ache a little.

Maybe she wants to do all that over the desperation of keeping him. She’s not so sure.

Seungwan knew first, almost right off the bat—though she’s in a point where she knows there can’t be any teasing involved; _Unnie, so is something going on between you and Junmyeon-ssi? Chanyeol oppa—_ and she turned beet red, then, when Joohyun interjected to point out the now far, far more familiar nickname. It doesn’t stop her from inquiring, though, and Joohyun did tell her about the strange coincidences, the number of times she and Junmyeon knowingly met each other. Even the one where she met his mother unknowingly. But behind Seungwan’s interested inquiries and remarks of wonder over the way fate had played her, Joohyun detected a tinge of worry. She didn’t point it out. Seungwan, too, didn’t bring it up.

“Maybe, like us back then when meeting their friends,” Seungwan referred to Junmyeon as _them_, instead of him, when Joohyun asked whether she should introduce Junmyeon to their friends; she automatically inserted Chanyeol in, “ask them to dinner?”

It’s a bit too early for a double date, Joohyun thinks. She doesn’t want to share Junmyeon’s attention yet; she closes her eyes as she thinks that._ It’s a bit too early to think like that, too, Bae Joohyun_. And it’s not going to be a double date too, because Sooyoung’s going to join, and she’ll drag her jokester, loud boyfriend.

“Maybe,” Joohyun shrugged, purposely vague, “maybe one day.”

Joohyun thinks, perhaps she doesn’t need to introduce him to her friends, because what’s the point, when she doesn’t know yet what’s in store for them.

They’ve managed to meet a number of times, sometimes only for a fifteen-minute break; he’s busy, as she’d already anticipated, but he’s close—he works in the Coex Group HQ, quite literally next to the massive, massive Coex Mall where she works. It’s been very low-key, most of their meetings; coffee, lunch, a drink (Joohyun, too, introduced him to cheese tea), once a movie, and it wasn’t until they took a stroll around the mall, passing by the aquarium, that they planned an actual date.

It’s a little strange to Junmyeon, how much of a big deal going on a proper date with Joohyun is—he finds himself trying to pick out clothes casual but nice enough for the occasion, and takes an hour doing so. He feels like a stupidly lovestruck teenager—but maybe that’s what he is. It’s a bit unfair, how effortlessly pretty Joohyun is in her casual, feminine white blouse and cardigan, in contrast to his carefully picked out jacket.

“My friend Sooyoung works here,” she informs him, looking a bit hesitant, “do you want to meet her?”

“Of course,” he says without thinking, “the mermaid?”

Joohyun grins. “Yes, but mermaid shows have been cancelled since the beginning of the month. It’s too cold.”

Joohyun introduces him to Sooyoung; talkative and cheerful as ever in her flashy dress that tinkles as she moves—in lieu of the mermaid show, the aquarium holds a small theatrical educational performance for children, about a princess who can talk to sea animals. They also meet Sungjae, Sooyoung’s marine biologist boyfriend who takes care and is in charge of the manatees and other sea mammals.

The whole trip is enjoyable and laid-back, and Junmyeon surprisingly looks like an excited, eager child; he intently listens to Sungjae’s talks about the marine mammals, he touches the glasses of the displays, tells her how pretty everything looks in blue. When Sooyoung and Sungjae left them to their own devices, he pulls her close by the hand, to show her a colour-changing display of jellyfishes when she lags behind a little. He lets go, then, but she doesn’t, and he ends up lacing his fingers with hers.

“It’s a bit dark,” she reasons, and Junmyeon smiles. She hopes the blue hue enveloping them can hide her colour. “And you keep running around like a kid.”

It’s not a chiding or embarrassed tone; if anything, she’s saying it fondly. Junmyeon laughs sheepishly, squeezing her hand. “Sorry. I haven’t gone on a recreation like this in a while. And I really, really like water.” He continues, then, when she raises an eyebrow. “I always wished my family live near by the sea.”

“Sooyoung said her parents’ home is right by the sea, back in Jeju,” Joohyun muses, “she says it’s a bit horrible during these winter times, the wind and the rain.”

“Don’t dampen my dreams like that,” Junmyeon laughs. “But it must be great during other seasons. Have you been?”

She shakes her head. They go to the aquarium cafe, and Joohyun got them both ice cream; they sit facing each other on one of the tables, and though they’re busy holding their ice cream cone, Junmyeon’s right hand finds her left on the table. She lets him be as Junmyeon caresses the back of her hand with his thumb; Joohyun has small hands. Small, soft and pretty—just like her. He thinks, this date is like a trip down memory lane, and is worth it for the amount of work he has waiting at home.

“Maybe one day we can go,” he says. It was Busan, then, and Jeju, now. It’s a reckless, bold suggestion, still, even more reckless—because it’s farther—than Busan, but Junmyeon thinks he really, really doesn’t want to care right now. He tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, to make it sound like a vague, somewhat empty suggestion—because it is, they’ve only known each other for a while, a short while, and he doesn’t know what the future holds. Maybe now that fate’s brought them by coincidences together, it won’t help them again.

He doesn’t want to think that maybe, that one day will never come.

“Yeah, maybe,” Joohyun says, lightly. She doesn’t know why she can say yes so lightly, when she doesn’t know what they will be, in that unforeseeable one day. “Hike Mount Hallasan, go to Seogwipo to see the waterfall. Eat some seafood by the sea?”

“Dive, like the _haenyeo ahjumma_s,” Junmyeon grins. “Can you swim?”

“No,” Joohyun answers, scrunching up her nose in mock disdain as she finishes her ice cream—but she can’t, really. “Bring Sooyoung if you want to dive, not me.”

Junmyeon bites the last of his cone, too, and he stands up, holding out a hand. She laces her arm through his elbow instead. “But it’s you I want to go places with?”

Joohyun snorts and rolls her eyes. “Charming,” she retorts, and Junmyeon laughs again, “Sooyoung’s grandmother, and mother, are both _haenyeo_. She always says she’s one, too, just a modern one.”

“How did you meet your friends?” He asks, yielding to his growing curiosity. “All of you are from different places.”

Joohyun contemplates an answer that will both be short and straightforward enough to satisfy him, but also vague enough that she won’t have to tell him every single detail of her life. Maybe one day she’ll tell him—but not now, even within the dark and cool blue of the waters, to let him in now feels too disarming. Maybe one day, when it’s just the two of them next to each other and the sound of night surrounding them, she’ll tell him all the time she’s been wandering.

“They come to me, mostly,” she says, half-truthful, “like Seungwan, who introduced herself when we first work at the department store… Seulgi was her high school friend, so that. Sooyoung, well, we met in a—don’t laugh, Junmyeon—dance studio. Seulgi dragged me. Yerim was like Seungwan, kind of came up to me… and we all just stuck.”

“They came to you and you adopted them, you mean,” Junmyeon says, a knowing look in his eyes.

Joohyun shrugs, but she smiles, because it’s true. “Your friends are only two to three years younger, and you act like they’re your kids,” she points out.

Junmyeon hums. The aquarium is not so crowded, today, and there aren’t a lot of rowdy children running around, screaming at their weary parents to catch up, and they’re walking arm-in-arm leisurely through the same corridor they’ve walked past before stopping for ice cream. It’s calming, to be surrounded by this much blue, with Joohyun’s constant presence by his side. He wants to tell Joohyun something, something he has a general idea about, but he doesn’t know how—yet.

+

**(mapo-gu, junmyeon)**

He’s on the laminated wooden flooring, in his rolled-up, unbuttoned work shirt, his laptop propped open, balancing dangerously on his knee while he scribbles on his tablet. Graphs and reports of customer engagement for the last holiday season, _chuseok, _are littered around him; the winter-themed ads and marketing did attract an increase, as brands are more willing to participate in sales, but it’s been a slow increase. Junmyeon’s been poring over them in a while, trying to determine which does better than the other.

The front door opens, then, and comes in Baekhyun, who’s stunned to find him, but sighs in resignation immediately after. His pink hair—he’d changed it from orange so Chanyeol can colour his orange without them looking like stupid orange roommates—have faded a little more, it’s sticking out almost everywhere, like he’s swept by a storm. His round, thin-rimmed glasses is crooked.

“I don’t wanna know why you’re here, but at the same time I wanna,” he says, flopping down on the couch right behind Junmyeon without taking his coat off, “you preparing for a date? With Joohyun?”

“Sort of,” Junmyeon says. Oddly enough, it still feels a little strange to call it a date—he still hasn’t asked anything of Joohyun, and neither has she. “Chanyeol let me in before he went to work.”

“Yeah, sure. Anyways, why are you here, she’s not home yet?”

“No, she is,” Junmyeon answers, already typing on his laptop, “she’ll let me know when she’s ready.”

He feels Baekhyun move to stand up again, then, walking toward his refrigerator. “No, I mean, why not just hang at her place?”

“I need to finish this bit of work.” It isn’t a lie—Junmyeon does have a little bit of work left that he has to finish before meeting Joohyun. He supposes he could have done it at her place, but really, Junmyeon isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep his eyes on his work if she’s near.

“I have a gig tonight at that pub,” Baekhyun says as he gulps down a bottle of water, not questioning further, “can I tag along with you, hyung, like, just up till Hongdae? I’ll left you two after that. The second subway line is crazy packed, I have no idea why. I don’t remember any events in Hongdae, is there?”

“Sure.”

Baekhyun grows a little quiet, then, and Junmyeon looks up in instinct only to find him slightly smiling at him. He raises an eyebrow at his younger friend, who laughs and finishes the rest of his bottle first before responding. “I’m happy for you, you know, hyung. Because you look happy,” he tells Junmyeon, a relaxed smile on his face, “you look happy, and you look in love.”

Junmyeon doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he rolls his eyes at Baekhyun, smiles and mutters a _thanks_. What he does know, is that it’s true.

Joohyun calls, telling him to meet her of the restaurants she likes nearby her place, and to not bother picking her up from her apartment. When he tells her that Baekhyun’s also going to be singing nearby, she relaxedly says they should later visit after their dinner.

“She’s so nice,” Baekhyun grins when Junmyeon tells him, “you’re a lucky one.”

He drives with Baekhyun to the main street of Hongdae, and parks on a small parking lot; the district _is_ almost abnormally crowded, though it’s a Tuesday. But again, it’s mere days until Christmas, and a large number of people are already having off days. He follows Baekhyun, who knows the area better, to look for the restaurant Joohyun recommended. They go past street vendors, buskers, and young college students pulling off street performances; weaving their way through the buzzing, excited crowd.

“Why,” Baekhyun groans, “is it so crowded?”

“Be merry,” Junmyeon says lightly, grinning, “it’s almost Christmas.”

Baekhyun snorts. “Sure you’re merry, you’re the one with a girlfriend, I’m here to go to work.”

They walk through the smaller roads, and Baekhyun bids him goodbye in front of a small restaurant right at the nook of a road, with wooden, traditional windows and a wood-framed white sign. It’s nondescript, and old-looking; the sliding wooden door creaks as he opens it to go inside. The place looks a little run-down, or at least deliberately so, making him feel like in a very old-style, traditional dining place. The tables are low, short-legged ones, propped on platforms that separate each table with another, and surrounded by shiny, but worn silk floor cushions. A good number of people are inside, mostly older people with their accented chatters.

He’s a little taken aback, but tries to hide it as he spots Joohyun sitting on one of the tables, waving at him. She’s wearing her glasses again, today, with her hair tied back, a little loose. She shines in her white turtleneck sweater in the humble place, and Junmyeon can’t help but smile back at her.

“I just got here too. Is it hard to find?” She asks first thing, after answering Junmyeon’s question whether she’s waited for a long time. “I bet you’ve never been to a place like this.”

Junmyeon wants to lie, but decides against it. “Yeah,” he says, hoping to not sound snobbish; but Joohyun beams instead. “Baekhyun knew immediately, actually.”

“Great,” she says in satisfaction. Junmyeon finds it endearing. “That’s a little surprising, by the way, but then again, he lives around here and works around here too.”

It’s a _gukbap—_rice soup—house, he finds out, as she points to him the food in the menu she likes most. A young woman comes to take their order, and it’s only a little surprising, but she calls Joohyun _unnie_, and Joohyun talks to her in a friendly tone; and the young, round-eyed waitress calls her mother as Joohyun mouths _be quiet_ to him when he looks at her amusedly. A middle-aged woman comes out of the kitchen, then, and Junmyeon is surprised to see Joohyun stand up to hug her, but he stands up too, and bows.

The woman; the owner of the place, fondly coos over Joohyun, and him—Joohyun shakes her head and laughs when she says_ finally, pretty Joohyunnie brings a boyfriend to eat here, and a good-looking one too_.

Joohyun laughs, and throws a look at him. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she says, smiling, teasing. Junmyeon feels himself falling a little further.

The middle-aged woman only finally leaves after threatening Junmyeon to put an unholy amount of salt and pepper in his soup, if he ever breaks Joohyun’s heart, and Joohyun’s still laughing when they sit back down. She looks comfortable here, no tension, no drawing back inside, as she does every so often with him, when she thinks she’s overshared; she looks almost at home in the humble _gukbap_ restaurant, familiar with the warm mother-and-daughter owner.

“My mom,” Joohyun says, and she laughs—her unladylike, free laugh, when Junmyeon chokes a little on his water, panicking. “I mean, she might as well be. I’ve been coming here since I first came to Seoul… she treats me like a daughter, almost. That girl—her actual daughter—her name’s Sohyun, she’s the same age as Yerim.”

Junmyeon waits, as Joohyun hesitantly stop herself from retreating within herself. “I first came to Seoul when I was nineteen,” she says, “I… only had… less than fifty-thousand won. I wound up here, somehow. _Ahjumma_ gave me free food and let me stay for a long time until I got a place, and also let me work here.”

She looks like she’s struggling to continue—but Junmyeon, too, is struggling to not stop her from continuing, because his heart aches, and he almost doesn’t want to listen more, because he won’t know what it’s like, and it hurts him, because he’ll wish he was there. But he knows it takes a lot for Joohyun to do this, and he doesn’t want to give it up for anything. She tells him that she’s worked anything—convenience stores, part-times, waitressing, babysitting, daycare. Her favourite was the daycare, she says, because of the sweet little children, but the salesperson job pays alright, as it is in a large department store.

Junmyeon is silent, mostly, but he itches to ask her what brings her from Daegu anyways, yet she doesn’t continue.

“I don’t spill my life story over _boba_,” she smiles, though it looks a little bittersweet, as if she reads Junmyeon’s thoughts and unanswered questions, and Junmyeon wishes he can touch her face. “Over _gukbap_, maybe.”

Junmyeon smiles. “Take your time, Joohyun,” he says, encouraging. “You’ve done well.”

“As have you,” she says in return, softly. “Thank you for listening, Junmyeon.”

Junmyeon throat constricts—praising, encouraging, has always comes naturally to him, but he rarely gets the same in return—and he’d be lying if he says he doesn’t wish to hear it. It’s a little bittersweet to have Joohyun say it to him, when she’s the one trying to open up herself to him layer by layer.

Their rice soups come, then, Sohyun serving them. She tells them to enjoy their meal, after she sulks a little, asking why Joohyun only introduced him to her mother. Joohyun’s eyes slowly brighten again, as they eat, as she start to tell him about the rising amount of Christmas-time street choirs and buskers, about the festivities, and about easier things than life. Joohyun hugs Sohyun and her mother before they leave to see Baekhyun; it’s already dark when they step outside, and yet it’s even more crowded than before. They pass almost all crowds that gather in front of any buskers, and when Joohyun ask him to start walking more briskly because it’s cold, she slips his arm through his—the gesture is easy, natural, and it is cold, _so_ cold in the end of December, but Junmyeon feels his chest warms.

Joohyun will spend Christmas with Seulgi’s family, she says, telling him to not worry, and she asks him what he wants for a gift.

“There’s a song about exactly that,” Junmyeon points out, and when Joohyun laughs after she understands, Junmyeon unlinks their arms to take her hand and put it inside his coat pocket. He grins at her as he squeezes her hand, fingers interlacing; she’s flushing slightly behind her glasses, which fogs at the bottom from her winter breath. _It’s you._

+

**(hongdae, joohyun)**

She’s lied before, a lot of times, but she’s rarely felt too much remorse over it—she never really lied about anything major after all, mostly harmless things, mostly white lies, as this time. She doesn’t feel remorse, either, now, but she does feel regret over the last lie.

“Seulgi already asked me to spend Christmas Eve and morning with her family, at her parent’s house,” she had said to Junmyeon, “so don’t worry and have a nice Christmas with your family. Do you want anything as a Christmas gift?”

It had been a white lie—not even technically, because she did not tell him that she had turned Seulgi down. The truth is that on the 24th, after work, she went straight home, because while not flocked by frantic, last-minute Christmas shoppers, sometimes people do get jewellery for Christmas gifts, and sometimes said people do buy them at nine-twenty in the evening, ten minutes before closing time. She went home, because she’s tired, and she wants to sleep, only she can’t. She responds to her friends, her workmates, who have told her to have a merry Christmas, but she leaves Junmyeon’s texts unread, _let him think I’m having a time at Seulgi’s family’s place_. She could have gone to the Kim’s _gukbap _place, and Sohyun texted her, too, but she’s pulled several white lies at all people, to avoid telling that ultimately, she’s going to spend the eve of Christmas alone in her apartment, laying on her bed tiredly in the dark.

Junmyeon’s having two Christmas dinners—with his bosses and work colleagues, and then with his family. _In Gangnam_, he answered when she asked where. She thinks of high-rises in the district and expensive liquors she’s never learned the names of, then large, wall-fenced elite houses in closed-off, private neighbourhoods of Apgujeong. She thinks of her dinner, _naengmyeon_ that she ate hurriedly because there had been a bit of a rush at seven, and almost laughs at the contrast.

She’s lonely, she thinks, looking outside the window, that, despite only looking over small lanes and other low-rise apartments like hers, does provide some view of little flashing lights from the main district of Hongdae. Joohyun hugs her knees to her chest. She’s lonely, but she’s a little too tired to be miserable.

Her phone pings in the dark.

From: **Seulgi**

_Unnie are you with ahjumma Kim and Sohyun? It would be fun if you’re here! My mom asked about you and said you should come tomorrow if you want to, we have loooots and lots of food. I already told the others too, Yerimie said she’s probably coming. Merry Christmas! ^^_

As her phone pings again, she sees Seulgi sending a picture of her and her small Christmas tree, and Joohyun smiles despite herself, a little guilty for tricking her friend—Seulgi, bright and pure and raised full of love.

To: **Seulgi**

_Merry Christmas_

Joohyun puts her phone away on her nightstand, and ignores it as it pings another time, figuring it’s probably Seulgi replying to her again. She takes a small box, reminiscent of the one for Seungwan’s gift of guitar picks, and opens it. It’s a gift she’d bought Junmyeon, after a couple hours thinking about it, and a couple of inputs from her friends—mostly Seungwan, really. She likes small, meaningful gifts like these the most, as with Seungwan’s guitar picks, which she chose, but it’s a little difficult, she had thought, trying to get a gift for someone who could probably pay two years of her rent in lump sum.

She got Junmyeon a tie clip; she had wanted to get him a lapel pin—no specific reason, really, but she had thought it would look nice if he wore it on the collar of his suit blazer, a piece of her she could give him. She found the tie clip by chance, though, a simple, titanium one, but there’s a small little swirl embossed at the end, and it reminded her of ocean waves. He’d said he liked waters, liked the ocean, and he smells like cold, fresh water could have been.

She hopes he doesn’t get her any gifts, because it’ll be hard to compete against, and if he did got her something that made her feel reluctant to give him her small one, she couldn’t _not_ give him anything. It’s not like she can’t buy anything, not like she doesn’t have money, still, like ten or so years ago when she went to Seoul with nothing, but still, she wonders if it’ll be a match for whatever he’ll give her.

Joohyun groans, then, and falls on her back on the bed—she’s here, overthinking, as if it’s absolute that he’ll get her something.

Her phone pings again, then, but at the same time, there’s a knock on her door, and Joohyun’s heart jumps. She sits up, stilling when the knock repeats; and after the third one, she takes her phone, shaking a little, as she slowly stand up to get to her door. She glances at her phone, and her heart quickens more, but upon doing so, she almost runs to the door, opening it, barely thinking.

From: **Junmyeon**

_Open the door for me? I’m outside._

When she opens her door, Junmyeon smiles at her, a little grin—sheepish, but a little triumphant, while her eyes widen and her mouth gapes slightly. He looks handsome, almost formal in his dark, muted red sweater over white shirt, and his sand-coloured fleece coat; his black hair only very slightly messy.

“How—?”

“Gut feeling?” He says, sounding almost smug, almost all-knowing, but his smile is empathetic. “I’ve met a lot of liars. I’m one myself.”

Joohyun frowns, but she can feel her heart hammering. “Spending Christmas alone isn’t a crime. Are you just here to make a pity party for me?”

“No,” he says, smiling, and he lifts up a hand that carries a white paper bag and a four-pack soju. “Just a Christmas party, without any pity. If you want to. Or should we go down and have these with _ttokpokki_?”

_What if I don’t want to_, she wants to retort, still leaning on her door, not widening the crack; thoughts and emotions running through her head frantically. _But I want to. _It’s cold, the minimally heated air from the hallway is hitting her through her thin pajama trousers, but she’s so confused, and overwhelmed, and she finally opens the door fully to let him in.

“Excuse me. And sorry,” he says, cringing as he registers the dark, “you’re about to sleep, aren’t you?”

“What if I hadn’t lied?” Asks Joohyun instead, arms folded on her chest, trying her hardest in feigning annoyance and ashamed indignation, when really, her heart feels like it’s grown three times the size. “What if I really wasn’t home, having a great time with Seulgi and her family? Won’t you look a little stupid?”

Junmyeon smiles. “I won’t look a little stupid,” he says. In her quiet apartment, his voice sounds like it’s dropped an octave lower. “I _am_ a little stupid when it’s about you, you know.”

Joohyun looks at him in disbelief, but she can’t help it—she scoffs, and then smiles, and it’s taking her every ounce of strength in her body to not fling herself to hug him, thank him for coming, for being here, and bury her face in the nape of his neck. She doesn’t have to, though, because then Junmyeon takes a tentative step forward and does just that, hesitantly enveloping her in his embrace, while still carrying his belongings, careful to not hit her back with them. He’s hugging her a little too loosely, like he’s prepared to let her go anytime she wants to, but Joohyun sinks into him, circling her arms around his waist under his coat, melting into his warmth.

“I really don’t understand why you’re here,” she mumbles into his soft sweater, as she tightens her hold around him. _But I like it, and I like you, and thank you._

She feels Junmyeon’s laugh, and smiles when he whispers to her hair; “I’m here to get my Christmas gift.”

He pulls away first, careful, still, to fling the bottles of soju and the shopping bag away from her head. He walks to her couch, setting the things on her small coffee table—Joohyun can’t help but notice that he moves as if he’s known the place. It feels like it’s been a little while since he’s first here, since they first met, since fate brought them, but really, it also feels like yesterday, and Joohyun doesn’t know which one is true. She doesn’t move to turn the main lights on, instead going to turn on her night light—the soft, yellowish light isn’t enough to illuminate her home, but it emits a nice, comfortable soft glow around her small studio. She looks at Junmyeon, already folding his coat in half and throws it over the back of her couch. When he looks back at her, he smiles, and Joohyun thinks in the dim lights of her apartment, he shines.

They drink on Joohyun’s couch, facing each other, knees touching; Joohyun’s legs are folded, her one knee over his, and Junmyeon folds only one leg under another. She hands him the gift she’d retrieved from her bed, and Junmyeon grins.

“This wasn’t the gift I wanted, though?” he says cheekily, and Joohyun moves slightly to kick his thigh, but she nervously waits for him to open it. The tie pin hadn’t been too expensive, definitely not as much as the necklace she remembers, still, that his mother got for his then-betrothed woman; and it’s exactly why she’s hesitant. But Junmyeon beams at her, and the brightness of it is enough for her to want to shrink. “Thank you, Joohyun. I’ll make sure to wear it.”

His gift for her is a soft, wool scarf, tan, almost the same colour as his coat, and she pouts when he insists to put it around her neck, even in the warmth of her apartment, but she lets him. He ties it loosely, and lastly pulls her hair out of the scarf, tucking it behind her ear, like he did the last time on the riverside, only his palms linger, this time, cupping her face. It’s easy, comfortable, and familiar to lean into his touch, Joohyun thinks, as she closes her eyes when Junmyeon’s thumbs caress both sides of her cheeks; she wants to stay like this forever.

They barely finish a bottle. But it’s strange, it can’t be just one bottle—they must be a little drunk, because Joohyun doesn’t remember when they closed off the space between them, when their knees aren’t touching anymore because Joohyun’s leaning her whole weight on him, now, as Junmyeon envelops her in his embrace, a warm hand running up and down her back. Her cheap couch is uncomfortable, and not big enough for two adults snuggling like this, but Junmyeon’s arms are comfortable, and warm, and feels safe. She sinks into him deeper, snaking her arms around his waist, feeling the soft fabric of his knit sweater drag through her skin; she can feel his rising heartbeat, too, in tune with hers.

They might not be drunk after all, Joohyun thinks, when she finally closes her eyes and Junmyeon leans close—so close, too close, and his lips touch hers. They aren’t drunk, they really aren’t, she thinks, as she can vividly feel and taste him, the light, subtle tang of soju, and she thinks of their first kiss as strangers, one she can barely remember, not a meter from where they are now, but the memory is blurred as ever, like the shadow of sobriety from a memory of a night out. His lips are a little dry, but soft, and it’s not a problem, because hers aren’t. She knows for sure, unlike then, when she has no idea if they’ve only kissed for a minute, or three, or ten—she’s sure this time, that they’re kissing for forever.

Because Junmyeon kisses slowly, steadily, steps after steps easing himself on her, his tongue moves tentatively, lazily inside to meet hers, in a little dizzying way. It’s not chaste, but tender, and they don’t break to catch breaths, instead, breathing raggedly as they kiss, and Joohyun likes it, likes the way her breaths and his grow shallow. _This is nice_, she thinks, instead of thinking about how screwed up this is, like she did back then when they first met. His hands doesn’t roam, one finds its way around the back of her neck, cradling the back of her head, only ever so slightly pushing in motion; while one rests still on her waist. Too still, Joohyun thinks, too stiff, but her own hands are doing the same.

They kiss until Junmyeon pulls away, right when Joohyun’s stomach starts to feel as if something’s weighing it down, when Joohyun starts feeling knots forming in her lower belly; he laughs—and it’s a bit annoying.

“Honestly. My leg’s falling asleep,” he tells her, smiling; but his eyes are dazed, unfocused, as hers would be. “Unfortunate, I know. I’m an old man.”

Joohyun hits his chest, but pushes herself up from him and she amusedly stares at him wincing, as he moves his leg down by his hands. “I’m older than you by two months.”

“I know,” he says, sounding a little miserable. Joohyun stifles a yawn; she realises how sleepy she is—and she reaches out a hand that he takes, helping him up.

“Sleep with me,” she says as she walks and sits down on her bed, barely thinking, and when it registers, she freezes. “I—but if you want to stay on the couch—I mean, my bed’s small. Or do you have to go home? It’s cold. It’s late—if you want to, you can stay—”

He doesn’t laugh, though. _Let me crash here_, she remembers him mumbling, back then, without waiting for her approval, but now they’re here, both stumbling over their words—or her stumbling over hers, mostly. But then he takes his sweater off, his belt off, leaving a white cotton shirt, a little wrinkled from how he’s been laying and sitting, and follows her to sit on the bed.

“If it’s fine with you,” he says, and Joohyun climbs to the corner in response, squeezing herself there to make a larger space for him. Junmyeon joins her, at last, after distracting her slightly by popping open the top two of his buttons, and he reaches out to her under the blanket, pulling her close by the waist. It’s always easy to yield to him; so she sighs contentedly to his lightly exposed collarbones. It’s crazy, the way everything is absurdly familiar, how easy it is to get their legs tangled like they’ve done this a number of times, how comfortable it is to fit in his arms. The fading scent of Junmyeon’s cologne envelops her as Joohyun buries her face into the nape of his neck.

They stay a while in silence, then low, hushed whispers, when Joohyun asks him about his family dinner, to distract herself from the strong beat of his heart. He says everything went fine, he’s always been amicable to his parents, unlike his brother, who holds a sort of animosity. He doesn’t tell her further, this time, and Joohyun asks if it’s because they drank, and how they don’t spill things that are actually buried deep within when they drink.

Junmyeon laughs; Joohyun feels the deep timbre reverberating through his chest. She can’t see his face, but she knows his eyes form crescents, wrinkling on the corners. “Will you ever, ever let me live that one impromptu life-story down?”

“Perhaps not,” she says. She doesn’t want him to live anything down, except with her.

“Unfortunate,” he says, barely above a whisper. He shifts, then, and moves—Joohyun’s breath hitches, because now, his face is barely centimetres from hers, their noses almost touching. His hair falls a bit messily to the side, lightly obscuring his eyes, and Joohyun wants to brush it away but he beats her to it, tucking her hair behind her ear again, and lets his palm linger, cupping his face. Joohyun decides she likes it, when Junmyeon does this, his warm hand on her face, caressing her, lulling her to close her eyes.

“Joohyun,” he says, and Joohyun opens her eyes, almost overwhelmed by the lack of distance. She likes Junmyeon’s eyes. They’re clear, and the irises dark, they’re kind, and she wants to stare at them forever. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

Joohyun smiles, and rolls her eyes, but she tries to remember if he ever did. “Actually no,” she says, finally. “No, you’ve never. Am I?”

“Trick question,” he whispers, “I just told you.”

Joohyun can’t help but chuckle, letting out a fond, exasperated breath. “Fine. Say it again, then.” She never had to ask someone to call her beautiful. It’s always come naturally—not that it’s anything of a pride, but it simply does. “Tell me.”

“Trick question, I just told you,” he grins, “there, I said it again.”

Joohyun pinches his side, making him wince, and they laugh; Junmyeon’s laugh is low, sultry. When he finally closes the distance between them again, Joohyun greets his lips with ease, with slow excitement, falling into rhythm that he sets. She thinks everything is quieter, this time, like everything stills except for everything involved in their kiss. It’s growing progressively harder to think, for Joohyun, when there’s so much going on at the same time like this—his tongue pushing softly onto her palate, the small nipping and sucking that’s happening, the way she can feel his racing heartbeat while her own blood rushes by her head, the way one of his hand feel like a still deadweight on her waist, as perhaps the only conscious thing he’s still doing.

Their legs are tangled, a bit dangerously so, because Joohyun can feel the low heat before their legs, and she knows she’s done for because, as she deliberately start to drag her bare feet along his leg, she realises her hands have been roaming this whole time, has been touching his hair, his skin, instead of his wrinkled shirt. _We’re done for_, she thinks, mind swimming, as Junmyeon moves and pins her below him, never breaking contact. She shivers when his hand finally moves, hesitantly at first, by the hem of her pajama top, slowly touching the skin on her waist, on her stomach, on her side, but his hand—warm, soft hand—doesn’t move anywhere else. She almost desperately wants him, wants to be smothered by his cold, aqua scent, wants him to keep going, with the way her Pajama already rides up, with the way something is already churning within her lower belly.

When they finally stop, Junmyeon takes a shaky breath and straightens himself on top of her, eyes half-lidded and dazed. His lips are no longer dry; they look moist, and swollen, and Joohyun licks hers, already missing the contact.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, grinning, a little out of breath, when she brushes her fingers against his hair, which she herself messed up, pushing it back, only to watch they all fall back front. “You’re really, really, really beautiful, Joohyun. And I think I’m in love with you.”

Joohyun pulls him down and kisses him short and slow, and Junmyeon smiles against the kiss. “So are you,” she says as he presses their foreheads together. He is beautiful, Joohyun thinks, absurdly so. “And so am I.”

When he lays back, Joohyun realises how more than his two buttons are undone, and Junmyeon grins when he points it out and she blushes as she mourns her poor self-control. Junmyeon’s heartbeat is slowing down, at last, when Joohyun presses her face on his almost-bare chest, warm against her cheek.

“Can I get my Christmas gift now?” He asks, hands running up and down her back idly. Joohyun snorts, the warmth of her own breath firing back from where her face is buried.

“I’m already yours, Junmyeon,” she whispers. Cheesy, she thinks. But it’s true—she is, now, and she hopes he is hers, too.

He kisses the top of her head, and tightens his hold. “Merry Christmas and good night, Joohyun.”

Joohyun mumbles it back, and feels her consciousness wane to dreamland. They sleep until over seven, comfortably snug and warm on her small bed, barely for two, and kiss in the morning only to fall back asleep. It’s not a lonely Christmas, after all.

+


	4. 4, part one

_tears from countless days_

_became my support when I was thirsty_

_even sadness becomes a memory in the end_

_brightly in my heart_

**(samseong-dong, junmyeon)**

Winter, Christmas, and New Year might be blissful to some, but most of the people he knows dread it—as does he, because it’s the busiest time between the years. On New Year’s Eve Junmyeon had work, because his team supervises the New Year’s celebration, coordinates what went on which LED display panels, and _time_ is essential almost to the millisecond when you count down the change of the year. It’s three days of straight all-nighter and he barely has any rest—he yearns for the warmth of Joohyun’s place, of Joohyun.

She watched the countdown, with her friends after work, along with some hundreds of other people on the open hall area of the Coex complex between the Artium and the mall—as he holed up in the control room with the teams, directing which ad, which video, whichever goes where, and texted him _Happy new year._ He couldn’t even reply until nine in the morning, when he finally woke up after his nap.

It’s a strange feeling, to not be alone—he forgets when was the last time he dated, actually dated and actually in love, as much as this. It’s a bit weird to know that someone cares that much about what he ate for the day, about what he’s doing, how he’s feeling, and likewise, it’s perplexing how he, too, cares as much if not more, how he finds himself wondering throughout the day about what Joohyun is doing. He thinks it’s funny how his stomach does somersaults each time he receives a text from Joohyun, every time he hears her laugh over the phone. It’s almost unbelievable to him how everything falls into where it is now, when things started by coincidences, by half-drunk, and full-drunk actions. He misses her. The last time he saw her was on Christmas.

People notices—he hasn’t met up with his friends yet, but his coworkers, colleagues, all notice. He never knows what to say, when people just up and tell him he looks happier these days. He wonders if he doesn’t look happy on the basis.

He finally has time to meet Joohyun on the third, and it’s a little stupidly overwhelming, how much he misses her—he feels like a teenager, like it’s a first love all over again, when her smile, her laugh, her, in general, often makes him lose train of thought, makes his stomach turn in glee. He takes her to walk through the galleries in the Artium after her work is over and apologises because he still has to go back to finish some things.

“The perk of working close by,” she tells him, smiling as she slides her hand to hold his.

He realises, as he becomes hyperaware of Joohyun’s presence next to him, that he’s never walked the four-level gallery with anyone else. He used to go here a lot, and still does, sometimes, the quiet, long halls of the Artium a comfort for him, when he doesn’t think people will bring him. It used to be an independent art gallery, used to only have two levels, back when he was still in college, but it was acquired by the Coex group and renamed Artium, though the owner insists it keeps its essence: an art gallery to showcase works by amateur, starting, and rising artists, from photographers to painters to visual artists. It’s somewhat of a niche place, with the people coming in usually looks somewhat stereotypically artsy, but it’s always empty enough that nobody can really stood out, since there’s not enough people in comparison.

He finds the place calming, with how quiet it always is, and he always enjoys looking at art, too; there’s always something to sympathise with, the way paintings hang a distance apart from each other, each conveying different things, each walking different directions. He had wanted to work there as a curator, but things happened the way it was, his parents didn’t think it was a good idea, and he supposes it’s more than good enough his father got him a job close by. It’s a prestigious sort of position, too, with a title of _Director _in front of his name, one he’s often tired of holding, one he knows some people thinks behind his back that he doesn’t deserve to have.

“Are these people famous?” She asks curiously, leaning down to read the description of a large photo print of a woman staring blankly at the camera, while blurred in the foreground are faceless people interacting in what seems like a bar; the woman is drinking alone, and it’s unclear whether or not she actually realised she was being photographed. The series is called _in a bar_, and on where the photographer’s name is supposed to be, it’s written _lay/zyx_.

“No,” he tells her, as they walk to the next picture; a man sits alone with his hand covering his face, three soju bottles on his table, one fallen on the side, with a crowded foreground, a same format. It’s of lonely people in bars, he realises, and he looks at Joohyun with a sense of déjà vu. “I think not really, anyways. It’s the concept of the gallery, to display works by starting, amateur, or lesser known artists, sometimes students. The aim was to promote these people.”

“I don’t really understand photography, or art in general,” she admits shyly, “but I think they’re very nice.”

He smiles. He always likes seeing the raw and emotive, the striking and symbolic pieces of arts, photographs, paintings that the Artium always so carefully curated, but this time, today, to him maybe she’s the prettiest piece of art there is. “They are.”

“You like going here, don’t you?” She asks, looking at him in a way that’s observant, studying. “To be alone.”

“Yeah,” he answers, a little surprised with the reason she figures, not finding a reason to say otherwise, but not really sure what to tell her the real reason why. “To escape from Baekhyun.”

“You like Baekhyun.”

Junmyeon laughs. It’s oddly hard to lie to Joohyun, but then again, she failed to lie to him too—perhaps it’s because the lies they tell are of a same caliber, of the same reasons that they see through each other like glass despite only knowing each other for a short time. “Yeah, well, I like that it’s quiet here. I can think clearly. I like looking at the arts, it’s like I can see what other people are thinking, feeling, things like that,” he shrugs. A lot of the times he goes to the gallery alone to see the artworks, by undiscovered artists, he can see feelings—raw feelings, loneliness, and tiredness conveyed without words—he feels like he’s understood, that he’s not alone. He figures it won’t make much sense to her, but it’s how he often feels. Maybe the curator’s a lonely person as well, he muses, to often pick out pieces that evoke said emotions from him. “I used to want to be an art curator, you know. But I think I didn’t have what it takes.”

Joohyun doesn’t respond, only squeezing his hand as they continue their walk in silence. He partially wishes she does, give him a little bit of reassurance, perhaps—because as it turns out, it has been something he seeks from her unconsciously. But he supposes even without a verbal assurance, simply her presence as a constant warmth against his hand, it’s somewhat enough. And maybe for once, walking the halls of this gallery, Junmyeon feels like he really is not alone after all.

On the seventh of January, he finds out that the Artium’s maybe closing down, and the impact is rather overwhelming. He’s been waiting for Joohyun to finish work; a rare occurrence that he finishes first, and decides to stroll the gallery—it’s almost 9 PM, and though last admissions are almost an hour ago, the front-door guard lets him in because of familiarity. The place is empty half an hour before it closes, the lights not yet dimmed, but it feels like a lonely place already.

He takes the escalator to third floor, having the photograph he’s seen with Joohyun in mind. It’s not a surprise that there’s someone else still inside, but it _is _a surprise that the person is standing right where the pictures of people at bars, that took Joohyun’s attention, that sent him into a déjà vu. Junmyeon continues to walk there, minding a distance between him and the other man, but then the said man turns to smile at him.

“Hello,” he says, there’s a slight difference in the way he rolls his tongue for the _n_ and _s_. The man looks a little sleepy, his wavy hair messy, and he has a dimpled smile. “I thought last admissions are over?”

“Yes,” Junmyeon answers politely, smiling in kind, “but the guard lets me.”

“Ah, you come here often, then,” the man says, and Junmyeon thinks perhaps he’s a foreigner, with the way the accents bounces off his syllables, though subtle. “Thank you for coming.”

Junmyeon raises an eyebrow; he knows the owner, a strange, extravagant old man called Lee Sooman. This young man must be one of the artists, then. “Are you an artist?”

“Yes,” he nods, smiling, and pointing at the picture he saw with Joohyun, the man who covered his face, bottles of beer littered on his table. “I took these. My name’s Zhang Yixing. ”

A Chinese man, perhaps, Junmyeon thinks. “I actually came to see your pictures,” he says truthfully, “they’re really nice. I saw it the other day and I wanted to see them again. I might even try to acquire them.”

Yixing looks touched, and his small smile stays when he, too, looks at his works; there are four in total. He puts his hands inside his pockets. “Thank you, I’m really thankful—_honoured_,” he tells Junmyeon, reverting to English a bit, and Junmyeon smiles encouragingly. “You know, I’ve been trying to get my works displayed here, for the past year, but there’s so much talented kids and students out there,” he laughs, “tough competition.”

“Why here?” Junmyeon asks curiously; while the Artium is quite big, it’s not a large-scale art gallery, not one which displays million-dollar arts. “There are bigger galleries, too.”

“It’s just different here,” Yixing shrugs, “every work I’ve seen here are… different. Technique-wise, sometimes a mess, but everything is… pure?”

“Genuine? Raw?” Junmyeon chimes, because Yixing struggles to search for a word. Yixing nods, smiling gratefully. “I suppose you’re right.”

“At least I managed to pass these through before this place closes,” he muses, and Junmyeon reflexively turns his head to him in surprise. “I wonder if they’ll let my works up until the last display,” and he glances at Junmyeon, nodding upon seeing Junmyeon’s surprised expression. “Yes, they’re thinking of closing down within this year. It’s not really a gallery people flock to, just a select few, it must cost a fortune to run.”

It’s a lot to take, it turns out, so much so that he spaces out every now and then, after bidding Yixing goodbye, after he meet Joohyun and they drive to his home. He’s been caught up in life a little too much that he forgets the place was his sanctuary. It’s only when Joohyun told him he must’ve liked going to the gallery, a couple days ago, that he remembers. Maybe it’s because she’s here, now, he muses, somewhat bittersweetly.

Joohyun notices, like she notices everything about him. They were planning to watch a movie, maybe a romantic-comedy that he had thought they might abandon halfway. She’s leaning on him, her warmth flush against his side, as they snuggle up under the blanket on his sofa, much bigger than hers.

“Are you okay?”

Junmyeon tears his eyes off of his TV, already forgetting what the movie is about, and looks down at her. She feels soft and small in his arms, a perfect fit, he thinks, as he sees her looking up at him with mild worry in her face. He’s given her one of his sweaters to wear for the night, and it hangs loosely on her, though the collar falls a little too loose, a little too open. This is comfortable, he thinks, _this_ is sanctuary.

“Yeah,” he says, and he laughs when she stifles a yawn. “Does the movie bore you too, then?”

“A bit,” she admits sheepishly. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been zoning out.”

“I am,” he says, a little more surely, this time, because maybe old sanctuaries are no longer as much of a comfort as this after all, that he can now find comfort and shelter within her; and Junmyeon fondly smiles at her as he caresses her cheek. He kisses her nose, then, and Joohyun giggles before reaching forward to give him a kiss, soft and full against his mouth. So they do abandon the movie halfway indeed.

They move to his bed, eyes half-lidded and tired, but content and comfortable. His bed, like his sofa, is bigger than hers—but the space is unneeded; it has always been a large space, his bed, empty, indeed comfortable, yet unwelcoming, but not now. It’s cold to the touch when they lie but Joohyun is warm when she huddles closer, arm sling over his torso while his lay under her head as he pulls her close, the gesture natural, like they’ve been doing this for weeks, for months, for years, when it’s only their second time sharing a bed. It’s a bit strange like that, how easy things are; it’s strange that despite the short amount of time, over coincidences and fateful meetings, how much he feels like everything belongs where they are—that she has always belonged in his arms, to fill the empty space on his bed, to fill the space in his life. He realises, as he thinks about days wandering the Artium, the sanctuary he found in loneliness among the artworks, he now finds in her presence. He realises, Joohyun feels like home.

Maybe his sanctuary is bound to change. Maybe that’s life—turning, moving, ever-changing; and Junmyeon thinks, as Joohyun scoots closer to him in her sleep, it’ll be fine.

+

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

Like it had been as a suggestion—his suggestion, bold, careless, and spontaneous, their Busan trip happens suddenly, unplanned, spur-of-the-moment kind of thing that leaves her both giddy and lightly petrified. She’d joined him a little late on the night of his friend Kyungsoo’s birthday, and like everything else between them, the event felt familiar, like she’d been through it before—Seungwan came with Chanyeol, and Junmyeon did offer to wait for her and came in late with her, but she insisted he should just have fun with his friends first. They were all half-buzzed up already when Joohyun came, and the warm welcome from his friends felt just like when she and Seungwan first joined for Chanyeol’s birthday, only this time, she wasn’t met with Junmyeon’s stunned silence, instead his big, happy, half-drunk smile.

Kyungsoo’s notably much, much more lenient with them being drunk on his birthday, or perhaps it’s because they’re not in his workplace, this time. They opt for various types of wines, this time, per the birthday boy’s request, ones she doesn’t really bother to learn the names of, and it doesn’t take long for Joohyun to feel content and warm, leaning closer and closer to Junmyeon. Baekhyun’s drunk teasing is simply a white noise when there’s Junmyeon, warm and cozy in his soft, soft cotton sweater next to her, running a nice warm hand up and down her arm, her waist.

He returns to her place, this time, because it’s a little closer—it’s so easy, they don’t think about it much, like it’s just how it is, spending nights over at each other’s place is an everyday occurrence. Maybe it’s the alcohol, it always incites more response from him, but Junmyeon is feeling somewhat in the mood for spontaneity, and it’s a Saturday night so he asks her if she has work tomorrow. She doesn’t; neither does he. Off his sweater, his shirt messy and half-tucked, cuddled up against her, he asks Joohyun if she wants to go somewhere, tomorrow.

“Of course,” Joohyun says; she doesn’t mind going anywhere, she doesn’t mind staying in, she just wants to do this all day long, all the time, with him. “Where do you want to go?”

“Busan?” He mumbles to her hair, half-sleepy and half-drunk, and then snorts, almost not believing he just said that. “Too far?”

“No,” Joohyun answers, almost too quickly it surprises even herself, “let’s go.”

Junmyeon doesn’t even fully remember the suggestion in the morning, when Joohyun shakes him gently awake—he’s bleary, and his brain feels several times too large than what his skull can contain, the telltale signs of wine-hangover, the most headachy hangover, settling in. There’s no alarm anymore, now, in waking up to her soft, flowery scent, no disorientation in waking up in a small bed where there’s almost no space left for him to roll without falling; instead it’s a welcome change, a delightful morning discovery that she’s here, she’s real, she’s his. He ignores her nudging him awake, and snuggles up to her instead, pulling her blanket tighter, willing his eyes to stay shut.

“Wake up,” she whines, but laughs when he tries to steal a peck to silence her. “Wake up,” she repeats, pulling her one hand out of his embrace to touch his face. “Junmyeon, we have to get train tickets?”

“We have to what?” He finally opens one eye confusedly, but even his half-conscious state registers that she’s too pretty to not be processed with two eyes open, and he proceeds to blink himself awake. “Train where?”

“To Busan,” she answers, laughing, “not one with zombies, preferably.”

She’s so pretty; the way morning light hits from behind her persistently through the blinds of her window, the mess that’s her hair spilling over his arm, her slightly puffy morning face. Junmyeon has to force his brain to kickstart before answering. “Train. To Busan? Zombies?” She looks at him with amusement and the patience of a saint. “We’re watching that? This early?”

“You said last night you want to take a day trip to Busan,” she tells him patiently. Her voice is slightly heavy from sleep, and her hand is caressing his cheek; it takes a lot for him to not shut his eyes again. “You don’t want to drive, do you? Of course we should take the train.”

It sounds like a dream, something out-of-place, but he remembers vaguely of the suggestion he blurted out last night, and the one he said a couple weeks before. It’s a marvel, really, how much she can keep herself together after alcohol, when to him, the memory is vague at best. “Busan?” He mumbles, gears still turning. “You want to go? With me?”

“With who else?” Joohyun asks incredulously. “Or do you want to stay in?”

As tempting as spending the whole day snuggled up with her sounds, he manages to pull a coherent thought and almost jumps out of her embrace; the idea of him, Joohyun, together, traveling just sounds a lot better than anything going on in his life ever. “No, no,” he yawns, “let’s go.”

They take the train, the 10.17, and Joohyun thinks of the last time she went back home in Daegu three years ago—or really, if she can call it home still, the way it felt lonely and the way the four-hours felt like forever. There had been a feeling of emptiness, like the trip lacked a purpose, that she knew what would greet her there, and it was nothing, no one. It’s different, this time, with Junmyeon’s hand clasped around hers, with Junmyeon’s encouraging smile as she browses through the internet for places to see; it’s a new feeling, yet it reminds her of a time when she was only twelve, barely able to sleep because of a bubbling excitement of a school trip. It reminds her when things had been okay—it feels like things are okay, now. It doesn’t feel lonely, now.

He lets her pick the places they want to go to; content with seeing her excitedly look for the sights to see. She looks like a little kid, he thinks, as he leans his head on hers in the moving train, the way she asks him if this place is pretty, if the view will be nice; the way she shyly asks if she’s being too excited for a simple day trip like this. It’s too late at noon to see the sunrise from the seaside temple of Haedong Yonggungsa, but it’ll still be a nice view of the sea, he tells her. He’s been to Busan a number of times anyways, he muses, this time, he’s pretty sure the prettiest view will be Joohyun.

She doesn’t let go of his hand, the whole time; even as she runs to the stone railing of the temple overseeing the sea. Junmyeon’s the one that pulls away, because cold, winter sea wind is blowing her hair everywhere, and he reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear. She smiles at him, her beaming, bright, carefree smile that reaches to her eyes, that he wants to belong only to him, only for him, and it’s always been there—but his brain finally conjures the thought, _he loves her_.

“Imagine having a temple stay, by the sea like this,” she marvels, “in Daegu—the Donghwasa is on the mountains, so it must be so different, waking up to the smell of sea like this. Early mornings, sunsets, all by the sea. It must be so beautiful.”

Junmyeon laughs. “You’re a romantic.”

“Maybe,” she smiles, reaching out a hand that he takes reflexively.

He remembers their first date, at the aquarium, when she reaches out to hold his hand first, blushing even in the dark of the blue, telling him that he’s like a kid running around. She is, too, now, he thinks fondly as he holds her cold hand tight and let her lead the way up and down through the stairs as they walk to reach the white statue of Gwanseum-bosal; it’s nice to think that even then, she didn’t want to let his hand go. _You lucked out_, Baekhyun said. He really did.

They stroll the temple, touching the Buddha statue for good luck on its belly, the surface where people have touched it smoother than the rest of the stone, they walk hand-in-hand by the bamboo forests that sings a soft, low noise as winter breezes through the green branches. They go around, to the East of the Haedong Yonggungsa, and down to the coast where they unheed the warning of slippery stones and Junmyeon laughs as she wobbles down; _steady_, he says, his hand an anchor for her to hold on to, and Joohyun pleads, _Junmyeon, don’t let go_. He doesn’t. She finally finds her footing on the stones, landing right in front of him and Junmyeon can’t help himself but to pull her in an embrace to kiss the top of her head. Joohyun laughs and hugs him back, and he straightens her crooked glasses as they pull away. It’s so freeing, like this, only the two of them, hands always entwined, her smile always present, as he’s sure his is too. There’s no work, no worries, no shadows of different lives they’ve been leading—there’s only them, him and her, together, swaying as they try to find stable footing between the slippery stones, him laughing every time she shrieks when he takes a step too big for her to follow.

“You’re so happy,” she points out, as they walk along Haeundae beach hours later, after they stop to have some seafood from street vendors, and Junmyeon laughs. It’s true, he has had nothing but smiles the whole trip, a smile that radiates, a carefreeness that she doesn’t see when they’re in Seoul. “You needed a vacation, didn’t you.”

“Did you see yourself?” He asks, grinning. “You’re really excited when we toured the temple, too. Feels like I’m chaperoning a high-schooler.”

“But I’ve never been there, and you have,” she retorts a little stubbornly, slightly feeling warmth on her cheeks. “Besides, it’s a very pretty place. It’s a pretty city.”

“Did you see yourself?” He asks again, and grins when she shies away, pulling her closer by the hand to wrap his arm around her shoulder. Junmyeon feels warm, safe, and it’s reflex for her to circle her arm around his waist in response. “You’re the prettiest.”

“Charmer.”

The sky is gleaming golden, now, the blue fading to orange by the bottom, as the sun prepares to say goodbye. It sinks behind the high-rise buildings along the coastal line, five-star hotels and restaurants, elite apartments with a majestic view twenty-four-seven, all-year long. The glint from her glasses reminds him of the time they walk along the Hangang, the awkwardness as they tried to open up to each other, the way he didn’t take her hand even as it brushed his multiple times, and reels from the fact that it’s barely a month before. They’ve been going fast, but it doesn’t feel like a scary, an unfamiliar thing; in fact, each moment with her feels like the most natural thing, like he belongs, like he’s going home.

They manage to catch the ten o’clock express back to Seoul, after they duck down a small, nondescript seafood restaurant by Haeundae beach to enjoy _nakji-bibimbap _and some rice wine. They fold the armrest between their seats in, and Junmyeon lets her sleep snuggled up and warm to him throughout the trip back, himself barely managing to not doze off under her warm weight against him.

It’s about two AM when they got back to her place, Joohyun’s arm never unlinking with his as they shiver through the cold dusk air. It’s still a bit cold in the hallways of Joohyun’s floor though her cheeks already regain colour, and Junmyeon laughs at her unwillingness to let him go.

“What?”

“We’re already inside, is it still cold?”

Joohyun snorts, and pulls her arm out in response, but he’s always faster by reflex, now, easily pulling her in even closer, as his hand move from her shoulder to her waist. It’s not easy walking like this, but it’s not uncomfortable. They stop before her door, and she fishes her purse for her keys.

“I should go home,” he says, suddenly, taking her by surprise. She won’t lie, she doesn’t want him to.

“It’s two,” she tells him, incredulous, “why not just rest now and leave in the morning?”

The thing is, Junmyeon thinks, if he doesn’t go now, he won’t want to go at all, and there’s something—something, that tells him, it’s a little different, tonight, a little dangerous. He knows there’s nothing better than to get inside, spend what’s left of the night with her warm by his side, but he doesn’t know that now, that he feels so much for her, that he wouldn’t want something more. “Joohyun, I haven’t changed my clothes for over twenty-four hours,” he forces a laugh instead. “And we have work tomorrow.”

“I know,” she says, and Joohyun almost blushes from how needy she sounds, but she doesn’t care. “We’re going to part in a couple hours anyways and who knows when else we’re going to spend a whole day together?”

Junmyeon doesn’t know the answer to that, so he lifts his hand to cup her cheek, caressing her with his thumb—she’s soft, but cold to the touch. He wonders if she knows what a whole circus his heartbeat is, what a whole mess, how much he feels like he’s going to burst just by looking at her pretty face, her pink-stained lips and cheeks like this. “Maybe you should leave some clothes here next time,” dare he say, she sounds somewhat hopeful, her big, doe eyes looking up at him, and it’s driving him up the wall, “warm ones, comfortable ones… so you can change into them when you’re here. I mean, if you want to.”

“Should I?” He asks, smiling amusedly. She’s put her hand on top of his. “If I want to, or do you want me to? What are you going to do with my warm and comfortable clothes when I’m not over?”

“Nothing,” she tells him, looking properly embarrassed, now, and he tries to fight off the thought, the instant imagination, but it’s almost physically painful the thought of her small, tiny frame in one of his sweaters, his old t-shirt, is. “I—it’s just a suggestion. If you don’t want to that’s fine, and, well, fine, if you want to go home now, then—“

There’s a lapse of judgment, a lapse of control there, and the next moment Junmyeon breathes he’s breathing her, because it’s been stupid hard to stop himself from kissing her. She’s soft and cold against his chapped lips, and he can’t help but smile against her as she inhales sharply in surprise. She yields easily to him, though, opening up as his tongue gently goes over her lips, and next thing he tastes is the warmth of her mouth, her sweet tongue. Or maybe he’s not as gentle as he thinks; because for some reason, they sway towards the wall, his hands ride up to hold her neck and to crane her head for him to kiss her even deeper, while her hands run down his chest, pulling his padded coat zipper open, her cold hand touching his chest, burning even through his sweater. It’s nowhere near chaste, nothing gentle, when her back finally hits the wall, and he can lean a hand there for support as he pushes her yet pulls her to him by the waist. He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t think, his mind is empty.

Joohyun’s cheeks are warm when Junmyeon pulls away, his breath ragged in front of her face as he leans his forehead on hers; his one hand still on the wall while one finds its way back behind her neck. The proximity is dizzying, and she can see his lips—wet, pink, and bitten—her fault.

  
“We should go inside,” she whispers to him, “my neighbours might pass…”

Junmyeon chuckles, then, the vibration going through his chest to her palms, and Joohyun has the decency to blush—he’s awfully teasing today, and it’s driving her crazy. “I don’t know, being watched sounds kind of fun,” he says cheekily, and she gasps, scandalised. He plants one quick, small kiss on her lips before pulling away again, grinning. “What should we do inside?”

She slaps his chest, earning a half-hearted _ow_; two can play this game, if he so chooses. “Pervert,” she tells him, laughing. “Fine. Go home.”

Junmyeon’s grin is still plastered on his face when he dips again, but this time, he kisses her warm, undoubtedly reddening cheek. Joohyun is dumbfounded, however, when he pulls away and she loses touch with his warmth; her racing heart rate drops as she watches him bend down to pick up her key that she doesn’t even realise she’d dropped. She looks up at Junmyeon as he hands her the key, his guilt-free grin a little crooked, his clothes and hair a little disheveled.

“You’re—you’re really going?” She asks him, disbelieving, and the way he blinks in confusion in return almost makes her yell at him. “_Home_?”

“Didn’t you tell me to?” He asks her, taken aback, and Joohyun _can’t_ believe the genuine confusion in his face—

“—Are you serious?” She blurts out before thinking, baffled. “Kim Junmyeon, have you never _dated?_”

The way his befuddlement mirror hers—in opposite ways—Joohyun can’t believe it, really. There’s just no, no way this is the same man, the man who just pushed her up the wall in the bright and open hallway of her apartment to kiss her senseless, the man who just teased her endlessly not _seconds ago_. “I—wow,” she breathes, frustrated, “are you—are you stupid?”

“What?”

“Have you never dated? Have you never—I don’t know—do you not know push and pull or—wow,” she splutters, incredulous, “_how_ are you going to kiss me up the wall one second and then agree to go home the next, Kim Junmyeon, what on earth—“

“Wha—do you not want me to go—?”

“Of course, you dumbass,” she groans in frustration, she’s _so _close to stomping her feet, and it’s embarrassing, but he’s driving her _crazy_ for real now. “Oh my god, fine, go. Give me my key—“

But Junmyeon doesn’t mindlessly do what she tells him, this time, instead he goes in to hug her in baffled consolation, and Joohyun’s too tired to be a needy brat, now, though he’s being absolutely _dumb_ and _frustrating_ that—how can he not see that she’s been _asking_ him to not go—so she sinks into the hug as he squeezes her. “Okay,” he says to her hair, chuckling, “sorry. Sorry, sorry. Now tell me do you want me to go home or do you want me to stay?”

“Stupid.”

“So, I should stay,” he says, _finally_, and Joohyun sighs to his soft, warm sweater as he hugs her tighter; but he doesn’t move, doesn’t break the hug apart so they can finally go inside and pick up where they left off until they pass out asleep, so Joohyun lifts her head to looks at him, still disgruntled, though she’s a little confused at how he looks contemplating.

“Are you trying to make me _beg_? Is that what you’re into?”

“What? No,” he laughs, lifting a hand to tuck her stray hairs behind her ear, but his smile is hesitant, his eyes are a little dazed, a little unsure. “Joohyun, I…”

“Do you really need to go home?” She asks him, one last time, this time ready to let him, though she really wishes he doesn’t have to. This clinginess is making herself blush, making her stomach churn, but she’s been spending so much time with him, perhaps every hour for over the past twenty-four, and she wants more, she doesn’t want to part yet. She feels like if he leaves now, she’s going to combust, and Joohyun doesn’t know why. “If so, then it’s okay—“

“No,” Junmyeon repeats, surer this time, having both his hands cupping her cheeks, “I don’t want to go,” he tells her in a low, soft whisper, leaning his forehead down to meet hers, “I want you.”

Joohyun falls quiet, letting herself feel his breath, warm on her face, letting herself listen to her own rushing blood in her veins, as her heart starts to run, to stammer, to tremble at the way his eyes bore into hers. “I really, really, _really_ want you and it’s driving me mad, Joohyun. I want to hold you, I want to touch you, I want to keep kissing you and I just want _you_, and if I stay, I—I don’t know. I wouldn’t know if you—“

He’s been talking a lot. Talking too much. He’s been a little stupid, this night, and it’s going to be daybreak in barely hours and Joohyun’s tired, she wants the warmth of her apartment, the warmth of Junmyeon, she wants Junmyeon. She hopes the way she pulls him down to kiss him is enough answer—she’s been wanting him too.

+

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello UHHHHH i know it's been months but it's been so hectic and this. this series spiraled WAY out of control in terms of length im a bit. shocked. myself??? this is actually one big arc (verse, from the song) but it went really out of control and i had to split it into two parts..,,,, junmyeon at the end of this chapter: no thoughts head empty. me: many thoughts head full
> 
> (if you cant tell, im that student who usually bullshits her way through an essay though i dont know a damn thing about the topic)
> 
> so I guess this is kind of an alternate universe in which coex isnt owned by sm and the artium is an art gallery of some sort??? if it’s vague (it probably is, because i wouldn’t know enough so i just ran with it lol) im sorry sdsjks
> 
> ALSO. oh my god i lagged so much behind with this series that so many things had happened wtf jongdae had dropped his second album both exo and rv had had a super short comeback (let's pray for wendy everyday!) and now the pandemic oh and how can i forget jongdae!! getting married!! YAY TO HIM!!  
AND DONT FORGET TO SUPPORT SELF PORTRAIT OK OK OK I'M SO EXCITED FOR JUNMYEONS SOLO!!!!
> 
> see you in a couple of months  
(kidding, im quarantined, i got time ssjsjs)


	5. 4, part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning, it's gonna be a bit conversation-heavy at the end!

**(samseong-dong, joohyun)**

Things soon fall into routine, bland, usual routine—wake up, go to work, smile all day, be polite and sell things, go home—only this time it isn’t as bland. Joohyun knows Junmyeon’s text would be waiting in her phone, asking how her day went, talking about how bored he is in meetings, and he’d ask her about food they should try the next time they have time to go on a date. On his busier days it’s her who’d leave a text, and if he has to send her short responses, he never fails to tell her he misses her. He makes Joohyun smile.

She’d look forward for him call her and they’d talk in quiet voices until one of them falls asleep, or better yet, when he has time to go and stay over at her place—Junmyeon would bring his work sometimes, and she’d watch him struggle with his laptop and his papers from her bed until he nudges her to scoot and make room for him. She succeeded in making him leave comfortable clothes at her place; and he simply grins when he finally catches her slip and put on his big, loose sweater instead one of her own. Joohyun doesn’t really wonder why he doesn’t invite her over to his luxurious high-rise as much as he comes over to her measly studio to save herself from unnecessary feelings.

On less busy afternoon workdays he’d have her meet him by the Artium, and he’d already buy takeouts of the foods she told him about for them to have on lunch. On even more relaxed days she’d accompany him for a stroll inside—the works are always changing, and though she has a limited knowledge of arts she enjoys it, as it is something she observes Junmyeon likes. There’s a man with a foreign accent who comes up to him and chats, sometimes, and he tells her he’s a photographer.

He tells her it might close down soon. Joohyun doesn’t know what to feel about the closing of an art gallery she’s unfamiliar with, but Junmyeon’s eyes are a little sad, filled with a little longing. She doesn’t know what, but something ties him to the often vacant art gallery. But his eyes don’t always stay sad long—they crinkle and disappear into pretty crescents when he laughs, when she joins him to meet with his friends—and Seungwan. And she wants, she likes to think that they’re no longer sad, they’re bright and clear and loving, when she looks at him in the dark of her room.

“A little,” he tells her, when she asks if he’ll be sad when the Artium closes. “Because sometimes it’s like my safe place.”

“I’ll be that,” she tells him half-jokingly, as she cups and strokes his cheek. “Your safe place.”

He takes her hand and kisses it in response. “You’re already that.”

It’s a bliss, being with Junmyeon most days, feels like a long, sweet vacation from life instead of being a new part of their lives—their relationship feels like it’s taking place on a different plane, removed from the mundanity of their lives, their different lives. It feels like escapism, in a sense, that starts to eat her insides up—but she’s not ready for it yet, she’s not ready to think about anything further yet. It’s comfortable like this, it feels safe like this. She’s been alone, been lonely for so long—they both have, and to meet each other, to found each other like this, to finally feel she belongs to someone, she doesn’t want time to pass quickly. She wants to drag this out, this content, perfect part of their relationship, because for some reason, with how quickly things fell into place as they met, she fears that it’ll end just as quickly. She feels the looming threat of a ticking clock, a timer drawing to a close, like it’ll end any moment now, like the way January grows closer to an end.

There’s nothing she can do about it, she thinks. Until then, she’ll just have to make do with what’s in the present.

+

**(hannam-dong, junmyeon)**

It might have been the mix of coffee and light booze, but despite the still-breezy late-January air, Junmyeon’s insides feel warm. It’s a strange, maybe even toxic mix, but he feels rather bright and awake, still, despite the meetings filled with stubborn debates from many of his co-workers he had throughout the day. He’s been enjoying himself at work more, lately, been finding it less tiring, and more rewarding. He used to think that such a fast-paced line of work, where what little art elements he learned at school is to be used quick and easy, simple and to-the-point for the masses, is much different than the painstakingly-created, dreamier artworks like paintings and photographs he used to gravitate more towards. Maybe everything, even the most obnoxiously floral marketing his team settled with for the upcoming spring promotions, have its beauty.

Or maybe it’s Joohyun, maybe the flowers in the designs remind him of her, reminds him of the way she finds beauty in the simplest things. They’d gone for a short date to grab some coffee, and she’d stopped their walk at an old lady’s stall selling trinkets and accessories. She asked him if a pair of small, copper flower hairpins and a matching flower necklace would look nice on her—it would, he said. She’d found them to be pretty. She paid for them herself, because he happened to be out of smaller change—the grandma shot him a disapproving look, and Junmyeon had felt the need to defend himself.

“I could buy you something nicer from the store, you know,” he told her, “I mean, the grandmother was glaring at me the whole time.”

“What for? These are pretty,” she said, taking out the hairpins and handing it to him. “Put this on for me?”

He stopped to to do so, putting them right above each of her ears, before smoothing out her hair out of her pretty face. They _were_ pretty. Then again, few things were not pretty when Joohyun wore them. “You work in a jewellery store,” he told her, amused. She looked younger, sweeter with them.

“I know,” she said, smiling, “but does it matter where it’s from? They’re pretty, I like them. Not all pretty things have to come from pretty places.”

_I miss you_, he texts her. Her reply comes moments later, _Aren’t you out with the boys?_

He is, and it’s nice, because he hasn’t met with his friends in a while, and as usual, they go to Baekhyun’s last cafe gig to watch him sing and drink a few light beers for a pre-game of some sort, before deciding whether they would just have a casual drink or a full night out. It’s one of his fancier gig, in Hannam, a large, new, posh cafe with high ceilings and cozy beige sofas. It’s a strange kind of place to have a live singer, but at the same time it’s quite natural, as if Baekhyun’s just having a small, busking showcase. It’s supposed to be just him, Minseok and Chanyeol, since Jongdae and Kyungsoo are absent because of work, but to his surprise, they were joined by someone he’s familiar with.

“This is Yixing-hyung… Yixing-ge, I guess? He’s from Changsha,” Baekhyun introduces the man who, instead of Chanyeol, had played the guitar as he sang. “My replacement for Chanyeol. He’s also much more talented.”

“Rude,” Chanyeol snorts.

“Oh, we’ve met,” Yixing says, immediately waving to him, “I forgot your name, though.”

“It’s Kim Junmyeon,” he smiles. “So you’re an artist on all forms.”

“No way,” Yixing denies with a warm smile, “I’m just trying to earn some extra on the side.”

“And that side happens to be my main source of income,” Baekhyun sighs wistfully. “Oh you three don’t get the woes of a struggling artist like we do.”

“Please,” Chanyeol laughs, scooting over so Baekhyun can make room for Yixing. “What struggling artist spends hours online looking for brand-name jackets and shit.”

“Even struggling artists are allowed an occasional self-gratification,” Baekhyun grins good-naturedly. “You guys pre-gaming already I see.”

“You’re a little boring tonight, maybe because this place is a bit more posh?” Minseok teases, to which Baekhyun pouts. He continues, then, talking sudden, unexpected Mandarin towards Yixing’s direction, catching the rest by surprise. Junmyeon remembers Minseok does speak Chinese. Yixing also looks taken aback, but his gratitude is apparent as he replies Minseok in kind, speaking in the comfortable fluency of his native language. Minseok grins at the three of them, who watched in confounded silence. “I was just telling him why I speak Mandarin.”

“Right, you teach in an international school,” Junmyeon muses. “I almost forgot. But Baekhyun and Yixing, how do you know each other?”

“Destiny,” Baekhyun shrugs, grinning. “But for the better, eh, Yixing-hyung? We met about two weeks ago or so, I saw hyung busking nearby. I already was on the way to this gig here, so I asked him if he would want to join me, since _someone_ is too busy to juggle three jobs _and_ a girlfriend.”

“Oh, come on, man.”

Yixing laughs. “He’s very spontaneous. Baekhyun himself plays the piano, I wonder why he’d need an instrumentalist to tag along.”

“It’s kind of lonely,” Baekhyun whines. “I’m not saying I miss Chanyeol, because I don’t, but it’s just kind of lonely performing alone.”

“Stop talking like I’m not here, dude,” Chanyeol laughs. “I’m going to get kicked out of my apartment at this rate.”

Junmyeon laughs, finding the story rather endearing, and very _Baekhyun_, in a way. He could’ve gone on his own for most of his gigs—he _is _indeed able to play instruments, so he can easily play as he sings, but even when he’s not singing, he has the personality, the pull, the gravity to make a room pay enough attention to him, though he’s not yet some hotshot singer. His little ments and talks are enjoyable, and Junmyeon knows most of his audiences in cafes, bars that he sings in enjoy them too. Really, it’s only a matter of fate and god’s hands, that Baekhyun is yet to be found by a talent scout. Yet Baekhyun would rather ask a random Chinese busker to join him for a gig, not minding to have the musician pay split between them.

“Maybe I need a girlfriend,” Baekhyun muses, before pointing an accusatory metal straw at Junmyeon and Chanyeol. Junmyeon flinches at it; the thing had caught himself off-guard the first time when it came with his iced coffee. Minseok had simply laughed and said it’s the current rage, before whipping out one of his own from his pocket, to Junmyeon’s bewilderment. “You, hyung, and him, you two really made me felt left out and single and miserable.”

“You’re hardly miserable, come on,” Chanyeol protests. “If you want a girlfriend so bad then go get one, your job is literally one of the most accommodating one to get a girl, dude. Remember that one time a pretty college girl worked up the courage to ask for your number after she watched us? She even had her friend help her but you sweet-talked your way _out_ of that.”

Baekhyun gasps, scandalised. “Excuse you. She’s in college—probably way too young for me! I kind of feel bad about that. She _is _pretty though.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “See this is why I don’t take his whines seriously,” he tells Junmyeon, before taking a sip from his beer, “you know, hyung, that girl sat through since the beginning of the session. All two and a half hours. She even told him she had come the other day too, but only got the courage to go up to him that day.”

“Are you all here to attack me? Minseok-hyung, as the only other single guy left in our bachelor group, back me up on this one.”

“You’re on your own, unfortunately,” Junmyeon laughs, “Minseok finally got together with that pretty, what, math teacher, isn’t she?”

“Math and English, yep.”

“Dang, props to you, hyung. Whoo, congratulations to all of us except Byun Baekhyun,” Chanyeol cheers, and clicks his beer can with Minseok, who grins at the bewildered Baekhyun.

“_What,_” Baekhyun whines. “I never would have thought in our over eight years of friendship you all would have girlfriends before thirty. Yixing hyung. Tell me you’re single. Or, damn, do you have a girl back in your hometown?”

Yixing shakes his head and laughs. “I wish I do, but I don’t really have the time to date. And I’ll kind of feel bad for my girlfriend, I travel a lot, have random jobs.”

“_See _he gets it. I’m disowning all of you as friends.”

Junmyeon laughs and rolls his eyes. “What is this victimised behaviour just because you’re still single? There’s probably still Sehun and Jongin, who knows,” he smiles, remembering their two younger friends—he misses them. They’ve been working overseas in Europe right away after they graduate from school, and Sehun took the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree. For all he knew, the two might have had relationships, might have moved jobs, might pursue things he would never think they would—they hadn’t kept in touch for the longest time. It’s a little sad, a little unfortunate, to fall out of touch with someone so close, but Junmyeon was, in a sense, used to it. That was just how life is. He might cherish all the moments he can have with his friends, even the ones present now, but he knows that one day maybe he’ll have to give each and every one of them up.

It’s something he’s always known regarding relationships. Eventually, he’ll have to let go. It’s something he rarely thinks about, more because he doesn’t want to face it before he needs to, rather than because he wants to savour the moment. It’s not only with his friends that he feels this. Even Joohyun, he knows at the back of his mind, perhaps one day he’ll have to let her go—and this, he actively avoids thinking about, steers away from the thought, blocking it away from plaguing his mind.

But he’s been less successful in doing so, lately.

“Right, I wonder how those two are doing,” Chanyeol muses, playing with his empty beer can absently. “It’s almost eleven. Are we going anywhere else to drink or just chill here?”

“Right, right,” Baekhyun says, turning to look for the waiter. “Hey Lucas? We’re going.”

The waiter, a young, doe-eyed tall guy waves at Baekhyun as he jogs from the cash register, holding what seems like a large plate and a pen, but he only passes their table to whisper. “Ok, wait hyung. There’s a famous singer, I need to get her sign for the cafe,” he says in giddy, accented Korean, before running off to another direction. Junmyeon raises an eyebrow, as all their eyes follow Lucas. They watch him ask the singer, whose face is obscured by her hat and brown hair, to sign the large plate, laughing sheepishly all the while. The woman had came in with her friend, both wearing casual, nondescript clothing, and though Junmyeon noticed her coming in, he hadn’t really paid much attention, despite the two of them being the only customers left in the cafe other than him and his friends. Now that Lucas told them, though, the five of them watch curiously as the woman appear to agree to let Lucas photograph her.

It’s a bit of a mistake to ogle, as they really should’ve known—Baekhyun whips his head back to stop looking the moment the woman takes her hat off and smiles for Lucas’ phone.

“Ah,” Minseok says softly, as Chanyeol inhales awkwardly. “Should we go now?”

Junmyeon nods as Baekhyun mutters a small _yeah_, and quietly they gather their things, Yixing looking slightly lost as he picks up his guitar case and follows them to make their way out. Junmyeon lets Baekhyun walk first, and Chanyeol sighs as he swings his arm around Baekhyun in a sympathetic one-armed hug. Minseok smiles at him, shaking his head.

“Shut up,” Baekhyun grumbles at Chanyeol, “I’m fine.”

“I know, I didn’t say anything,” Chanyeol snorts, chuckling. “Seems like I’m going to go home bringing an absolute deadweight tonight, huh?”

“I swear—“

“Baekhyun hyung, Yixing-ge, wait!”

Junmyeon winces as Baekhyun tenses up and they all freeze—the whole thing is almost comical, the coincidence, funny in a bitter way, like a scene from a romantic comedy, as they all take a little longer than Yixing to turn around; Yixing simply turns around to look at Lucas as he feels his name called. Baekhyun eventually turns, slow and robotic, and Junmyeon can’t help but let his eyes wander to the woman, who, now, is watching them in turn with confused, wide eyes.

Lucas hands him a phone—Baekhyun’s phone. “You asked me to charge it at the counter,” he says, innocently grinning. “See you next week, hyung.”

He turns to talk to Yixing in Mandarin, shaking hands and shortly giving Yixing a friendly hug. “Take care!” Lucas tells them cheerfully, walking away to his register back like he didn’t just out Baekhyun’s existence to his now incredibly-famous high-school sweetheart, Kim Taeyeon.

It’s surreal; Junmyeon watches Baekhyun internally debates whether or not to look at Taeyeon in the eyes with a little worry. “This is fucking surreal,” Chanyeol whispers out loud. “I’m feeling like an extra in a drama.”

“Chanyeol, shut the hell up,” Minseok warns. “Let’s just go.”

Baekhyun finally moves, then, with a disbelieving sigh; he looks at Taeyeon, who’s standing up, now, looking dazed, though she doesn’t leave her table, and gives her a strained nod. He elbows Chanyeol—hard, evidently, as the taller man wheezes from the impact—and looks at Junmyeon, looking just as befuddled. Junmyeon raises a hand to pat him on the shoulder.

“Let’s just go,” he says, repeating Minseok’s words.

+

**(junmyeon, joohyun)**

He hasn’t seen it coming, but perhaps he should. He’s been a little too caught up in his newfound contentment of life, been actively avoiding having to face reality as a whole and simply savouring the better parts, like a child setting his vegetables aside during dinner. He’s so caught up in fact that the way his brother had called for a dinner, so out of the blue, hadn’t triggered any alarm or suspicion of any sort—he’d simply been pleased that his brother reached out, for a change.

Kim Junyoung sits across him with a plate of half-eaten bowl of salad and a glass of wine. A little contradictory, but it’s Friday, he supposes his brother just want to wind down. And to be honest, Junmyeon feels happy, honoured, even, that his brother—not quite estranged, but close—prefers to spend it with him than with his wife. He knows Junyoung has a demanding job, partly married to his work, making his wife has to share. It’s an awkward first fifteen minutes or so, until they started talking about basketball. Junmyeon knows it’s among what little recreational interests Junyoung retained over the years of studying, working, tending to patients. It’s one of his too, occasionally. It greased out the awkwardness, and then they’re finally able to catch up on more general things with much more ease.

“I heard from mom you and Yoona broke up,” he says, after he tells Junmyeon about how he and his wife are trying for a child. Junyoung had been married for three years, to a fellow doctor a year older than Junmyeon. She had dropped her specialist’s study back then for it and is a general practitioner, while Junyoung is an internist now. The concept of having a child, in and of itself still seems distant for him personally, but he knows their mother yearns for it—a grandchild, and as usual, it’s Junyoung who’s up to fulfil it. Junmyeon vaguely wonders if he’ll do the same as his brother, one day, fulfilling his parents’ wishes without much thoughts or epiphanies of his own.

“Yeah, well,” he says vaguely, trying to skirt around the subject. “It didn’t work out. We tried for a couple months, but she decided we’re better off as friends.”

Junyoung lifts the wineglass and toys with it, now filled with water because he won’t let himself drink over two glasses if he drives. The ease that they had built up starts to dissipate with his hesitance. “You two didn’t, you know, uh, try to work it out?”

Junmyeon drinks his glass, still filled with red, with much less reservation. “No, it didn’t,” he’s putting two and two together, and the disappointment starts to crawl in. Despite himself, he does like and look up to his brother, and regrets the way they drift apart in adulthood. To think that Junyoung isn’t taking his time out voluntarily, but under the coaxing of their mother, with an agenda to be said, hurts. “Did mother tell you to talk me out? It’s not gonna work.”

He sounds bitter, even he realises that himself. Junyoung sighs. “Yes and no. I do wonder about your well-being time-to-time, you know, even if you don’t believe it,” he says, setting down the water on the table, still not drinking it. “And I know it’s not going to work because it’s too late. She’s seeing a friend of mine. An army surgeon, we went to pre-med together.”

It’s not news to him. Yoona talks to him about work and about life, sometimes, as friends do. She told him about a man she’s seeing, and jokingly told him to move on from her. He told her amusedly that he already did, and she had been mock-offended at his secrecy, when she poured her woes and life secrets to him. He laughed, and she joked again if he had been two-timing her, with how fast he got a girlfriend. He only heard that he’s an officer in the army. It’s news that he’s a doctor, though, and now there’s a strange churning in his stomach that he sure as hell isn’t jealousy. Not over her, at least.

“I know,” he says, though he doesn’t. “She told me about it. I told you we’re good as friends.”

Junyoung hesitates again. “And I heard you’re seeing someone,” he says, and Junmyeon freezes a little, questions running, anger and indignation rising. Junyoung’s face changes just slightly, letting on that he knows. “Don’t get worked up. My friend was in Busan a couple weeks ago for a conference and he saw you, but he didn’t want to interrupt to say hi. He, well, he said she’s extremely pretty.”

“Good to know you have a lot of friends. I’ll relay the compliment.”

“Where did you meet her? What’s her name? What does she do?”

“None of your business,” he snaps.

Junyoung doesn’t react. “Mom doesn’t know,” his brother says after a short silence, the intonation vague, like a question, but also a statement. “And because she doesn’t, I wonder why you didn’t tell her. Why you’re not telling me.”

“Did you tell her?” Junmyeon asks, barely trying to hold back his annoyance.

“Shouldn’t I?” Junyoung asks, challenging, almost threatening. The ease between them is long gone. Junmyeon knows he’s wearing his brother’s patience down. “No, I didn’t. And I know she doesn’t know because she’s still talking about Yoona. Junmyeon, we’re not children anymore. I’m not going to cover your ass about a secret girlfriend like how I did when we broke that god damn china.”

“So go snitch to her, what’s stopping you?” Junmyeon asks icily. “Ever the good son.”

“Grow the fuck up,” Junyoung snaps back, taking full offence, “all I asked was your girlfriend’s name, and you get hostile. I told you we’re adults. I have enough on my plate without having to worry about your love life.”

“So why the hell are you here?”

“I’m trying to look out for you. But I’m also trying to not let you break mom’s heart by being reckless.” The _again_ went unsaid. Junmyeon hears it clearly anyways. Junyoung looks at him in the eyes. Reprimanding. Tired. Grudging, even, maybe, because he’d always taken the brunt of their parents’ expectations. Ever the good son. “Don’t be selfish. Think about our parents. Think about yourself in the long run.”

He doesn’t respond to the lecture, instead finishing what’s left of his wine in an almost nauseating chug. “Her name’s Joohyun,” he says after a while, “I’m leaving.”

Junyoung stands up, too. “Fine. Don’t drive. You’ve been drinking three glasses. And would it kill you to call me hyung?”

“Good night, hyung,” he deadpans.

The drive to Joohyun’s is hazy and stifling. He doesn’t even realise it’s Joohyun’s place he’s driving towards and not home until he’s way over halfway there. He’s annoyed at Junyoung, at how insincere his brother seems, when here he was thinking he’s ready to rekindle their old brotherhood. He’s annoyed at the mention of his mother’s desperate attempts to set him up with a woman of her choice, annoyed at the mention of a decorated army surgeon he knows Yoona’s parents will be as happy to welcome as him, if not more.

But in all, he’s annoyed—no, frustrated—at himself. He doesn’t know why he became defensive over such a benign question, as if he doesn’t want Junyoung to know about Joohyun, as if—as if he’s ashamed. Is he ashamed? Why would he? Junmyeon grips the steering hard until his knuckles are white, releases, grips tight, releases. He doesn’t know and doesn’t understand.

_Grow the fuck up. Don’t be selfish_. Junyoung’s words anger him. Perhaps more because he knows it’s true, and it’s a different kind of anger when people point out your vices that you know and laments upon, turn out to not be as personal as you think. It’s a different kind of hurt when the deprecating thoughts you try to talk yourself out of is actually the truth that people see. Junyoung, his Junyoung-hyung, who always feels distant and cold, who rarely updates their parents about his own life and doesn’t come on holidays, and yet, the one who always follows the paths they make him, even going so far to have dinner with him to appease their mother’s worry, despite obviously loathing to do so. Junyoung, ever the good son, unlike him—the difficult son.

He shuts his door so hard the whole vehicle shakes from the impact, and a woman glances in surprise. Joohyun’s apartment is right in front of him, but he doesn’t move to get inside. He watches the yellowing building absently, feeling a rare itch for a smoke, or more drinks, but he has neither on his person. He wonders if she’s already asleep, if she’s still up, and if she is, what she is doing. They had last met three, four days ago, he doesn’t remember. He wants to see her, but at the same time, he doesn’t.

He leans on his car, his finger absently hovering over his screen where Joohyun’s voice would only be a touch away. He doesn’t know if he wants to see her, because for multiple reasons he doesn’t feel like he’d know what to say to her—there’s nothing wrong in their relationship, but why does his thoughts feel so complicated and confusing?

He’d met her by chance, and chance again, and then again. It wasn’t as slow a process he thought it to be. It was quick, it was natural, it was automatic—he never fell in love this hard, perhaps ever. His life had been running after things after things and after more things, until he doesn’t know where he’s running to—and then it’s like she stopped him in his tracks, halting him into a pause, taking him into her home. He never had the chance to consider if he should be running again, or if this—if _she—_was where he had been running towards, but now he has to. Her home is warm and soft and safe, and out there it’s an unfamiliar road, cold and unfriendly and lonely. Is this a rest stop? Junmyeon feels his chest hurt from even thinking of it, thinking of Joohyun, as something merely temporary. And it’s not like he know where he’s running towards either.

He closes his eyes and feels the cool, slow moving spring winds on his face. It’s already April. A couple months ago he had asked Minseok for a cigarette outside the karaoke, thinking and wondering why he had ran into Joohyun again, as if there was one really, really stubborn deity out there. He hadn’t drunk much, but he doesn’t remember what he had deliberated about other than why coincidences after coincidences had occurred between them. Minseok was there, though. He wondered if Minseok hadn’t told him how obvious he had acted about Joohyun, would he still ask her to try. Would he stand here, wondering if it had been a right choice.

Junmyeon opens his eyes. Maybe he needs that cigarette. And Minseok, too.

“Junmyeon?”

He freezes halfway through opening the door of his car. Joohyun is walking towards him from across the street, and he thinks, _of course_. Of course.

It’s grown a little warmer out, and she’s only in a hoodie and her pants, her hair in a messy ponytail and her eyes are hidden behind her glasses. She’s smiling, but she’s frowning a little, confused. He closes his car door behind him and faces her.

“What did you buy?” He asks her first, faintly hoping she’ll be distracted a little bit—because he himself is, he doesn’t want to say anything stupid. “Midnight snacks?”

“Yeah,” Joohyun answers. She raises her eyebrows, barely distracted by his question—he’s here, but he looks like he’s about to leave, and it makes little sense. “Hi. What are you doing here? I thought you have a dinner with your brother.”

He reaches out to take her hand, and Joohyun lets him. Her hands are a bit warmer than his, this time, perhaps because they’re protected by the long sleeves of her dark, large hoodie. It’s his, he realises. “I miss you,” he says. It’s true, but he suspects everything will sound somewhat wrong.

“But you look like you’re about to leave,” Joohyun points out, amused. There’s something on his mind; it’s very easy to tell. He’s been quite an open book to her since day one. He’s not answering, though. Joohyun takes her hand from his hold to touch his face and runs her thumb on his cold cheek. “Hey,” she says, “is anything wrong?”

It’s so, _so _inexplicably easy to yield into her touch, always. There’s something about her that never fails to pull him in and keep him near, the way a gesture as simple as this can bring him warmth and a little bit of calm to his mind. “No,” he tells her. “My brother told me that he knew we’re dating.”

She’s always been able to make him ramble, to make him talk as honestly as ever without her having to ask anything, and perhaps it’s not always a good thing. Junmyeon feels her touch stiffens and he takes her hand before she can retract it. “It’s not like we’re hiding it,” he says, almost asking. “Joohyun?”

Joohyun’s mouth opens, but she doesn’t know what to say. “No, we’re not,” she says finally, feeling confused at the surge of emotions suddenly running high. One of them is fear. _No, we’re not, but—. _The night feels a little bit chillier and chillier even through his hooded sweater of the soft and thick fleece. “A—and what did he say?”

“He actually only heard from someone else,” Junmyeon elaborates, “he said a friend of his saw me, saw us, when we went to Busan. So I told him.”

“What did you tell him?” Joohyun asks, knowing full well she’s not trying in any way to mask her worry.

“Not a lot,” Junmyeon admits.

“What’s not a lot?”

“Your name,” he says, and Joohyun’s pulled her hand from his grip now, and Junmyeon can feel them treading a thin, thin line. “Is there anything—“

“Wrong?” She asks, feeling her worry multiplies into anxiety. “I—I don’t know, Junmyeon. I’m a little scared, we’ve never talked about families before and—and, well, you’re the only one between us who have one and you know full well how different we are and—“ Joohyun stops, realisation dawning on her and she feels her stomach twist a little. “I don’t know. Why are you here, Junmyeon? What did you and your brother talk about? If there’s anything wrong you’re the one who knows it.”

Junmyeon sighs, rubbing his hand on his face. “There’s nothing wrong. I don’t know. He just asked me who I’m seeing and I told him you. Why are we talking like this?”

“Did you tell him I’m Joohyun, a mere high school graduate who came from Daegu, who works mostly seven days a week as a department store salesperson? Did you tell him my salary’s probably not even a fifth, a tenth of yours, my whole rent only as much as your electric bills? Did you tell him I practically don’t have a family, other than an old restaurant owner _ahjumma _and her daughter?” She asks, and everything came so suddenly, like a burst of water through a broken floodgate. It sounds spiteful, and crazy, and pained, and Joohyun sees how stunned Junmyeon is at her sudden outburst. She is too. “Or just my name?”

“Joohyun, why are you—“

“Because I’m scared,” she says in frustration, feeling tears well up but not willing to let them fall. “I’m scared. I know we never talked about it and we should have. We’re from different worlds, Junmyeon. We met by chance, and then more chances, and more chances that it was so—so damn weird, and I wanted to think it was destiny or some cheesy thing like that but Junmyeon, the truth is we’re so different.”

Baekhyun’s words from days ago, rather clear despite the whole bottle he’d downed, had returned to him, hitting him in a different way. _We’re living different lives. We’re in different worlds. _Chanyeol had asked him why wouldn’t he talk to Taeyeon—as she’d stood in the fancy cafe Junmyeon doubted Baekhyun would keep singing in. Junmyeon had watched it unfold quietly, only sympathetically patting Baekhyun on the shoulder as Minseok scolded Chanyeol. And now the words, coming from Joohyun’s mouth, feels much more painful than it had been when he heard it in the middle of Baekhyun’s bitter drinking, amidst Chanyeol’s practical, but less sensitive thinking.

“It’s—there’s nothing wrong with us,” he says weakly. “It’s not like I’ve said anything to him, you don’t know if he’s—“

“Exactly,” Joohyun says, wiping the hot tears away, keeping her voice steady. “You didn’t even tell him anything and yet you’re here, you’re confused, you don’t know how we’re supposed to go now that your family starts to question. Tell me honestly. Would you—would you be fine bringing me home to your family?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” He responds.

A fraction too late.

Joohyun blinks, and somewhere along the lines her breathing calms into a scoff, a sardonic twist of the edge of her mouth setting him on edge. “I think you wouldn’t be,” she whispers, all too steady and all too calm for it to be alright.

“If you’re alright with it we can have dinner with my family next week,” Junmyeon says, his voice a little raised—challenging, defensive. He feels like a child caught redhanded and as children do, he denies. Lies. “Look, I’m _not_ hesitant in introducing you to my family, I want to ask you first whether or not you want it.”

Joohyun says nothing. “See, you’re the hesitant one,” he says—accuses, really, and he’s a little too far gone to notice that a nerve has been struck, somewhere along his petulance, “my family’s alright, we haven’t even tried, there’s nothing to be afraid of—“

“So it’s _me_, now,” she sharply interjects, now no longer teary but angry, offended, “stop lying to yourself and to me. It’s not about me being afraid of meeting your family or whatever, it’s—“

“Why are we having this conversation?” He sighs, wearily running a hand down his face and feeling the post-wine headache starting to settle in. “If you don’t want to meet them that’s fine, too, I’ll tell them to get off my back, okay? And look, we’ve just dated for a couple months anyways—“

Joohyun cuts him with a trembling sigh, and he stops rambling; his sweater now hangs heavy on her shoulders, an unwanted weight that feels all-too-warm and all-too-stifling. The night of her bustling neighbourhood is still roaring behind them with laughter, car honks and a far-off thrum of music from god-knows which bar is closest to them, but between them the air is thick with a different kind of silence. “Junmyeon, maybe this can’t ever work out,”

“Are you fucking serious, Joohyun? Because you’re afraid of meeting my family?” He groans, voice raising with exasperation and incredulity.

“It’s _not _that and you know it—“

“I told you, you have no obligation whatsoever to meet my family and it hasn’t been long since we dated.”

“_Exactly_. We haven’t dated for long, and that’s why we should stop this before things get worse and before I ruin your life—“

“—you _won’t _ruin my life, don’t be ridiculous—“

“—let us go, Junmyeon.” Joohyun’s voice is no longer trembling, now, but her tone’s raising in a tired sort of way, like a worn-out adult bargaining to a persistent child. “Please. Let’s just break up. I don’t care if you think this is because I’m a coward or whatever, we’re not working, we’re not going to work.”

Junmyeon closes his eyes and wills for his voice to not come out angry and indignant; he runs a hand through his hair as he sighs, trying to compartmentalise his knotted thoughts, trying to process a way out. “Joohyun,” he says slowly, hoping the words will come out genuinely and articulately enough for her to find reason, “listen—I’m sorry I raised my voice but we can talk about this, alright? My brother only asked me simple things about you, not like my parents are breathing down my neck about you or anything, and I’m here because I was a little surprised, that’s all, and I want to talk to you about it, want to know what you think about it. I know you’re worried—“

“Stop acting like this is only a _me_ problem and stop denying, God,” she snaps, and the words are angry, venomous, and bitter. It takes him by surprise, and gone are the tears that’s threatening to fall on Joohyun’s eyes; in their place are a raging glint and the reddening of her undereyes. “Do I have to spell it out for you? You’re a respectable man from a well-off family and you have expectations on you—I’m just a nobody from no family and I have nothing to expect of my future. I’m _dirt poor_ compared to all the things you have. You’ve grown up with a good family, a good education, good friends; I grew up with nothing, absolutely nothing that I don’t actually have anything to see left in my hometown. You have a well-paying job in a field I don’t even fucking understand because I’m just a salesperson and high school graduate. We’re _different_. Do I need to go on, Junmyeon? _You _don’t belong with _me_ and vice versa.”

Joohyun breathes heavily in the wake of his stunned silence, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from exploding even more. She’s frustrated, now, can’t he _see_? She knows people has been staring at their almost-screaming match, but she can’t really begin to care. Her grip around the plastic bag is impossibly tight and she can feel her nails digging to her own palms.

Her cheeks are blushing a furious shade of red that comes with her anger and Junmyeon notices, now, the passersby who’ve thrown their heads curiously in their direction. It dawns on him that something in the way the conversation had gone had inevitably led to this dead-end; he wonders if a forgiveness is due on his part, but he’s starting to be too tired to think. Her words stung, but it feels like it does because those are just things his deepest subconscious knows that she forcibly dragged to the surface. A wave of guilt washes over him as he considers the deprecation she’s made towards herself, and how—how his stupid, privileged subconscious has agreed.

The silence spans minutes between them, but Joohyun doesn’t open her mouth; it’s long enough for him to begin to wonder how they came to be—how they came to last, at least up to this point. He wonders what were his intentions in the first place, and finds that he has none that he can placate her with. Their relationship was just—it just _is_, he’s happy, certainly, he loves her, he feels safe with her. He’s just happy being with her, spending time with her, having her, loving her. But he doesn’t know what to say, now, to keep all that.

“Don’t say that,” he manages finally, but even he knows it’s too weak to salvage anything. “None of those matter, Joohyun.”

“They do matter,” Joohyun responds softly, hoarse from her silence. Between his slightly too-big sweater, the dim streetlight, and her fogging glasses she looks almost cherubic. “You know it better than I do.”

+

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watch me put another automatic pun in there >:)
> 
> so i guess this is kind of an alternate universe in which coex isnt owned by sm and the artium is an art gallery of some sort lol, and if it’s vague (it probably is, because I wouldn’t know enough and it’s not that much of a relevance so I just ran with it lol), junmyeon is a director of marketing at the hq, so like ones who actually organises what sort of campaigns the brand is going to go on a very large scale, etc2, it’s a tiring ass, demanding, high pressure job and he’s not that happy with it? anyways his dad is an investor in the company, that’s why he got the job at the first place, and didn’t want him to work in the gallery because it’s a doomed thing. 
> 
> and it kinda like, don’t matter, yknow, sometimes we as adults don’t really know what our passions are, don’t really know what we want to do, though some things bring more comfort than the other?? i want to purposely paint the both of them as such, as people who are constantly searching, people who don't really have the "i have 1 dream and i'm gonna do anything for it", which, imo, is a sort of 'privilege'--in the way that one have a driving force strong enough to go through adulthood. the short baekyeon portion was meant to be a contrast in more than one way, how the dynamic was reversed, and how their backgrounds, their jobs, were more passion-based in comparison to surene's. at the end of the day, sometimes reality hits, and passionate or not you have to work and earn your keep, and in love or not sometimes reality is not going to be accommodating enough for a lasting relationship (but this is, after all, not reality >:])
> 
> do i make sense...??? i dont think i do..???


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